David Miliband: My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I applaud the hon. Gentleman's concern to boost recycling rates, and I am sure he will be as pleased as I am that local authorities have been reminded recently that they have a duty to collect recyclates from schools, which has not always happened. As my hon. Friend suggested, one person's rigour in reporting, which I think was the phrase that the hon. Gentleman used, is another person's bureaucracy and form-filling. I am sure the hon. Gentleman would not want me to announce that I was sending a form to every school in the country asking it to weigh the amount of waste recycled. We will know success when we achieve more recycling by local authority levels. The percentages that I gave in answer to the right hon. Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack) are the sort of outcome that the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle should support, rather than denigrate.

Ben Bradshaw: The pressure is being borne on such companies not least by my hon. Friend in making that point in the Chamber. The case he refers to involves, I think, a Scottish company. If my recollection is correct, I am pretty sure that my Scottish colleague, Ross Finnie, expressed similar concerns about the sustainability of that activity when it first arose in the latter part of last year, as did the First Minister in Scotland, Jack McConnell.

Ben Bradshaw: As I have told the hon. Gentleman during our discussions, we are keen to explore the issue in the context of the general review of the common fisheries policy, which I believe is due in 2012. That does not mean that we cannot in the meantime make applications to the Commission for the extension of certain competences in agreement with the sea fisheries committees, but the arrangement would obviously have to be agreed at Commission level. Where there is potential for interference in the activity of other member states' vessels fishing legitimately between6 and 12 miles offshore, difficulties could be caused, but, as I have said, we are keen to explore the issue.

Ian Pearson: It is true that at present under the energy efficiency commitment priority has been given to cavity and loft insulation. Those are the least-cost solutions. However, it is also right to point out that cavity wall and loft insulation are among the best steps that can be taken to improve the thermal efficiency of people's homes. As the energy efficiency commitment develops further, and as we consider some of the suggestions of my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard), we will need to look at adopting additional energy packages and microgeneration measures in addition to standard energy efficiency commitment tools. All such measures are being actively considered as part of the EEC—energy efficiency commitment—consultation forphase 3.

Jack Straw: On local government reorganisation,my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government set out the process in the local government White Paper. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that opinions vary markedly on the issue, and not necessarily according to party. It so happens that it was a Conservative Government who agreed that Blackburn should transfer to a unitary authority in 1996, against the all-party opposition of Lancashire county council, so there is no party point to make. However, someone has to make a decision, because otherwise there will be paralysis and no change. There is never a right time to make such decisions. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman's area has elections every year or every four years, but mine has them every year, so there will always be an election coming up, or an election that has just taken place; that is how it is.
	We have increased the resources for the British Library, as well as museums, significantly, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport would not do anything to damage the services provided by the British Library.
	I wholly resent and reject the implications of the hon. Gentleman's remarks about my noble Friend the Attorney-General. He has carried out the duties of his office to the highest standards of propriety. The role of the Attorney-General is well settled, and I am glad that on 14 December the shadow Attorney-General confirmed the Conservative party's support for the Attorney-General's role, when responding to the Solicitor-General's repetition of the Attorney-General's statement about the suspension of the investigation of the Saudi matters. There is no way wholly to detach some considerations from the prosecution system, such as considerations of national security, and of national or public interest in the way that the Liberals suggest. Prosecutors are required by law to consider such matters. The hon. Gentleman ought to look abroad, at countries where prosecutors are allegedly entirely independent of Ministers, and see what criticism they are under, because they endup making political judgments, but are totally unaccountable in respect of those judgments. The Liberals would be screaming much more about the issue in that situation.
	On e-petitions, the hon. Gentleman's intervention was timely, because I have looked at the interest in e-petitions on the Downing street website, and I have talked to officials at No. 10 about the way in which those petitions could be linked to petitions in the House; that is an important function performed bythe House. The hon. Gentleman will know that the Procedure Committee is conducting an inquiry on petitions, and I will arrange for the people running the Downing street website to talk to the Clerk and the Chairman of the Procedure Committee about how we can better link the two together.

Pete Wishart: Last week, the Leader of the House kindly agreed to a debate on the Act of Union. Will he make sure that the motion covers the West Lothian question, so that a Minister can to explain to me from the Dispatch Box why it is fair and democratic for Scottish Members of this Parliament not to have a vote on health services in Perth, while, almost perversely, they can vote on health services in Penrith and Penzance? Why should the people of England put up with that for a minute longer?

Jack Straw: That is a good idea. Having read that Conservative document, which is an assemblage of various allegations off Google, I thought that the attack on Mr. Mockbul Ali, who is an official who worked for me in the Foreign office, was wholly unwarranted and unworthy of the Conservative party. As far as I could see, his only offence is that he happens to be a Muslim working as a civil servant. I hope that the Conservative party will withdraw that, and much else in that document.

Bob Spink: The Leader of the House will recall that the Prime Minister showedgreat courage, generosity and good sense in giving£27 million to the children's hospice movement to replace the falling off of national lottery funding last year, and in setting up a review to secure fair funding for it. That review is coming to an end, and its recommendations will be presented to the Minister concerned at the end of February. Will the Leader of the House look to hold an early debate after that so that the House can show its strong cross-party support for the children's hospice movement and its fair funding?

Julian Brazier: I am grateful to the Minister for allowing me to see an advance copy of his statement. He has taken a close personal interest in this matter from the beginning. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire) whose commitment as the constituency MP has been exemplary.
	The House should congratulate the French authorities, SOSREP, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and the Environment Agency, and, above all, the men and women of royal naval squadron 771, who bravely took on mountainous waves and gale force winds to save the 26 crew members. The rescue exemplified the highest standards of the Royal Navy. It was executed amid waves higher than the helicopter itself. When we see press reports stating that the men and women involved may be given a bravery award, I want to ask the Minister whether he really believes that such courage and commitment should be rewarded by handing over Britain's elite RAF and royal naval search and rescue operations to a private finance initiative, with uniformed people just embedded in it.
	Moving on to the vessel itself, once the marine accident investigation branch has finished its inquiry, we will need to know how it was that a ship given a clean bill of health in Antwerp only five days before, almost cracked down the middle off the coast of Devon. Indeed, it appears that there have been concerns about this vessel since it ran aground on a reef in the Malacca straits six years ago.
	Had the Napoli been out in the Atlantic when her sides cracked open, the main story might not have been the looters at the bay, but the tragic death of 26 seafarers. Yet this was a British registered vessel. It was our duty as the flag state to make sure she was seaworthy. The inquiry must answer questions about that. Can the Minister also reassure the House that the British coastguard carries out sufficient port state control inspections of foreign flagged vessels visiting UK ports, as is our duty under the Paris memorandum of understanding?
	Do we know yet whether there is evidence to suggest that human error played any part in the accident? Last year, Steve Allum of Aon Global Marine—one of the world's specialists in marine risk—warned that, due to the employment of under-trained but considerably cheaper crews,
	"the possibility of human error is significantly higher and will inevitably lead to increased accidents".
	A ship crewed by people from eastern Europe, the Philippines, Turkey and India must surely have suffered from language problems and possibly training problems, too. Will that be investigated?
	Although the beaching of the vessel at the world heritage site of Lyme bay caused understandable and widespread concern—indeed, dismay—this was, asthe Minister says, the only feasible place to shelter the boat. The worst outcome would have been for the vessel to have sunk in the open sea. In its fragile state, had it been towed away, it would have had to face the gale side on and would almost certainly have broken up—with horrendous environmental consequences.
	Nevertheless, the ship has offloaded significant hazards into the sea. Will the Minister say something about containers that may still be floating at sea? It is good to hear that most of the rest of the fuel will be cleared by Sunday, but is there an estimate of the extent of the residue?
	Mercifully, we have heard reports of only 1,500 oiled birds and 600 corpses so far. That is modest in view of the potential scale of the damage. I salute the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the RSPCA for their efforts. Has the Minister commissioned an environmental impact assessment on the marine environment, especially the Lyme bay coral reefs and bird life?
	May I urge, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon did before, revisiting our ancient salvage laws? Surely earlier action could have been taken against the unacceptable looting, which rightly caused so much public disgust.
	I end where I began in congratulating the Royal Navy and all the various agencies, French as well as British, on a magnificent rescue and a successful damage limitation and clean-up operation.

Stephen Ladyman: I thank the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) for his constructive comments and join him in congratulating the RAF crew. I agree that they were magnificent in the way in which they carried out the rescue under difficult circumstances. It required huge bravery.
	The hon. Gentleman went on to ask whether we should examine the organisation of air-sea rescue and whether it was appropriate to include it in a PFI. That is a continuing process, on which we are working with the Ministry of Defence and the RAF. The RAF will be an integral part of any future arrangements that we might devise. However, we have a duty to ensure that services are cost-effective. I guarantee that there will no compromise on safety or the service that air-sea rescue offers.
	The hon. Gentleman mentioned other issues, several of which related to the possible causes of the accident. I am sure that he understands that I cannot speculate on that. The marine accident investigation branch will carry out an independent study, as it always does into all marine incidents, publish its report and place it in the public domain. Its investigation is unfettered and will identify the cause of the accident. If it could have been addressed by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, that information will be put in the public domain and appropriate action will be taken.
	I was glad that the hon. Gentleman agreed that Lyme bay was the only appropriate place to beach the vessel. By doing that, we avoided a much worse environmental catastrophe. Although I appreciate that local people are distressed, I hope that they are reassured that beaching the ship on Lyme bay was better than the alternatives.
	There is an on-going search for the remaining containers. We suspect that the vast majority sank around the boat and sonar investigations are trying to identify them. There was a report of a container afloat further down the coast and that was investigated. Many reports are coming in of goods at various points along the coast but most turn out not to relate to the incident. I assure the hon. Gentleman that every effort is being made to identify floating containers, especially when they might be a hazard to shipping.
	The hon. Gentleman mentioned the salvage laws. When we conduct a wash-up on the matter, we will decide whether we need to reconsider laws but, at the moment, I feel—I put it no more strongly—that the laws existed and people had powers but did not understand that sufficiently quickly. Perhaps we can learn from that.

Stephen Ladyman: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Rowen) for his constructive comments. I am afraid that the  Western Morning News is not normally served with my breakfast.

Stephen Ladyman: Clearly, I shall have to put that right in future. I have not read the report to which the hon. Member for Rochdale referred but I have spoken to SOSREP since he gave the interview, and he was concerned that some of his comments might be taken out of context. I believe that he was trying to explain to the journalist that the vessel had suffered significant damage and that there was a risk of further break-up. Consequently, he appropriately put together several contingency plans based on what might happen under those circumstances. One hopes that they will not be necessary. Every time a container is taken off the ship, the stress on it becomes less and the likelihood of break-up or further damage is reduced. I hope that we can get through the process without further major spillage. If we can get all the oil off by the end of Sunday, the risk of serious oil pollution is minimal. Plans are therefore in place if the worst happens, but that is not expected at the moment.
	Local authorities should make an appropriate claim through the civil courts for the recovery of their costs. We will support them in that. We have spoken to the owners' representative and been informed of their views. They are being constructive and helpful and do not appear to penny-pinch in any way. I am therefore confident that we can resolve everybody's claims satisfactorily.
	A marine Bill would have made no difference to the incident. Such a measure would not alter SOSREP's decisions in such circumstances. When SOSREP is faced with the possibility of environmental catastrophe if a ship is allowed to sink in deep water, he has to take account of myriad things. Of course, he will consider the environmental sensitivity of a particular area, and weigh up whether less sensitive areas are an option. Ultimately, however, he must make sure that the vessel can either be put into a harbour safely or beached safely. A marine Bill would not have made any difference, and nor would any other device that Devon county council has been asking for to protect that stretch of coastline. By taking action we have protected the coastline, as the area would have suffered from pollution for many years to come had the vessel been allowed to sink at sea.

Stephen Ladyman: First, I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for the way in which he has represented constituents and for his constructive approach to the issue. None of us would have liked this type of accident in our constituency, and he could have been forgiven for getting angry about it, but he has not done so; he has dealt with it professionally and appropriately.
	The hon. Gentleman is right to pay tribute to the contractors and to say that Branscombe is open for business. I understand that the vessel is something of a tourist attraction at the moment, and I have no doubt that the businesses of Branscombe are cashing in on that. In the spring and summer, I hope that people throughout the country will continue to take their holidays and visit there, and I hope that many Members of the House do so too. When the risk of pollution has passed, I hope that the sight of the vessel offshore will act as a tourist attraction to bring more people to the village.
	If anyone has any difficulty in understanding to whom they need to make an appropriate claim, they should, of course, take advice. If the hon. Gentleman wants to discuss such issues on behalf of his constituents in future, I would be happy to meet him to ensure that everybody knows exactly what they needto do.

Des Browne: I am grateful for the opportunity to open this important debate on defence in the world. Let me start by paying tribute to the work of the UK armed forces, the Ministry of Defence's civilian staff, members of other Departments and members of the services, including the police and the Prison Service, who are deployed around the world, working in difficult, often arduous circumstances, defending our interests and security. We owe them a great debt of gratitude.
	Rarely in recent years have we had demonstrated so clearly the role that our armed forces play in the world. Right now more than 20,000 personnel are overseas working in the defence of the UK, its people and its interests. We are undertaking two major campaigns and a host of other tasks to deliver security, enable development and reconstruction, build confidence and strengthen the security capacity of our friends and allies. Nowhere are those aims more relevant, or the challenges to them more pronounced, than in Iraq. I was there yesterday—my fourth trip in the nine months that I have been in this job. As ever, I was immensely proud of the work that all our people are doing there, both civilian and military, working together to improve the life of the Iraqi people.
	The 12 million Iraqis who voted for peace and opportunity remain resolute in the face of far too many days marred by sectarian murder and terrorist atrocities. The politicians who represent those people tell me that Iraq is making progress—frustratingly slow perhaps, but outside Baghdad and the surrounding areas the situation is far from the hopelessness that is often played out on our TV screens, although it is understandable that those incidents of violence attract the attention of our media. That is not to say that all is well. Security is still the No. 1 problem, but perhaps what people back here in the UK do not realise is that 80 per cent. of the violence is concentrated within30 miles of Baghdad. That is why I have welcomed the US and Iraqi Governments' new plan for Baghdad without any sense that it is inconsistent with our approach. The security situation there demands it, whereas in the south the environment is different.
	I met Prime Minister Maliki and a number of Ministers from across the Iraqi Government and discussed the new Baghdad security plan with them. Their energy and commitment to making the plan work was both impressive and, to some degree, inspiring. They are behind the plan, and they tell me that the people are behind the plan, but it is up to them to make it work. It has to be an Iraqi-led plan, using significant Iraqi resources, if it is to succeed. While the US is putting in more troops to help support the plan, the Iraqi army is increasing its presence in the city and will be right beside them. In addition, the Iraqi Government are investing $10 billion in reconstruction and infrastructure projects. The investment is crucial because, as I have said so often about Iraq and Afghanistan, the answers are never purely about what the military can do. That is why this plan has to be a plan for all Iraqis, Sunni and Shi'a alike. Consequently, I welcome Prime Minister Maliki's pledge that sectarian interference will not be tolerated.
	I was in Baghdad during the festival of Ashurah and met Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, who told me that that morning he had been to speak at a celebration of the festival in a part of the city where a Sunni shrine and a Shi'a shrine are close together. He told me with some pride that thousands of people from both sides of the sectarian divide had gathered to celebrate without signs of trouble. He is a very devout man and has witnessed many festivals of that kind, albeit all too few when Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq, but it was clear to me that the experience had moved him.
	In recent days there has been talk of a split between us and our American allies. That is simply not true. I met several of the top US generals in Baghdad, along with Ambassador Khalilzad. Our goals—the UK goals and the US goals—remain the same: to help the Iraqis build the capacity to protect and govern their society. But Baghdad and Basra are different places. There is less violence in Basra and, by and large, the violence is of a different nature, without the poisonous sectarianism that infects Baghdad.
	Operation Sinbad is drawing to a close in Basra. It has had some measurable effects, and public support for the operation is good and reported violence is down markedly. That is not just a glib assessment. I spoke to young soldiers who told me of the measurable difference in the attitude of the people. They are responding to our support and take comfort in knowing that we are prepared to take on the murderous militia, much of which we believe is funded, trained and equipped by Iranian elements.

Des Browne: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his support. I know that it comes from a substantial knowledge base of what is going on in Iraq. I admit that I was disturbed by the interpretation of the part of the interview with Ambassador Khalilzad that was extensively reported in the UK. I was less concerned when I read the whole interview, and I was entirely reassured when I had the opportunity to spend time with the ambassador and to satisfy myself that he fully understood what we were doing. Indeed, he had been part of a process of discussion over many months about the application of our strategy for Basra. Part of the problem may be that there is sometimes a tendency to abstract parts of sentences or whole sentences from extensive interviews and to over-interpret them. In essence, the problem arose because Ambassador Khalilzad honestly conceded that there was not agreement on the detail of the plan at that point in the discussions. That was interpreted as being disagreement when it was just an indication that discussions were ongoing.
	The right hon. Gentleman will probably already know that very senior officers are embedded deeply into the command of all the coalition forces throughout Iraq. They are greatly valued, not just by our American allies but by the Iraqi Government, and they play a significant role. When I was in Iraq General Lamb, the senior British military representative in Iraq and currently No. 2 to General Casey, was in charge of the coalition forces. He was the commando because General Casey was out of the country. Against that background, the idea that there was no discussion and conversation between us and our allies about our operational plans is fanciful. Let me reassure the right hon. Gentleman and the House by saying that over-interpretation of one part of a very detailed interview may have misled us all for a short time.
	At the start of Operation Sinbad our forces were leading the way, but by the final stages the Iraqi army was out in the lead. That is a sign of progress. It is not a guarantee of success, but it is progress that the people of Basra can see. As well as the improvement in the security situation, thousands of jobs have been created through investment in both short and long-term projects. For example, $12 million has been invested in date palm farming, and Operation Sinbad has created about 25,000 short-term jobs along with the hopeof more than 3,000 permanent jobs. More than$30 million has been invested in the improvement of water and electricity supplies. The operation has concentrated on the "last mile", conveying those vital services to people's homes and schools. When, in due course, that work is married up with the long-term investment that the Department for International Development has been responsible for making and overseeing in Basra's water and electricity infrastructure, the benefits will be delivered to homes, schools and other buildings. So things are getting better.

Des Browne: The process of handing over, or provincial Iraqi control as it is known—or PIC as it is known to those who love to use only the first letters of words, as the military do—is a condition-based process. We are only one of several parties who are involved in making the decision on that. Part of that process is that the Iraqi Government must not only have a willingness to take over control, but be in a position to do so.
	The point about our troops in Multi-National Division (South-East) is that we are making progress along the strategic path that we have set and we are not deviating from it, which means that in the near future, we will be in a position to re-posture our troops. Exactly how we do that will depend on the commanders' advice on the ground as to what the specific operational plan should be. That will then affect the number of troops that we need, because protecting static bases is more expensive in terms of troops and manpower than collecting people together. However, there is of course a consideration as to whether collecting people together in that environment makes them more vulnerable, and as to how we can protect them there. All those matters have to be decided by operational commanders.
	The intention is to get to the point where we can hand over control not just to the Iraqi security forces, but to their local government and politicians, so that they can run that part of the country independently of us and we can adopt a posture of over-watch. We will do, for example, what the Australians do in Dhi Qar and al-Muthanna, the two provinces that have been handed over: stand by, ready to go to the assistance of the local security forces, if necessary. Interestingly, in both those provinces the political situation and the security situation have remained stable. Although there have been incidents, on both occasions it was possible for local politicians and security forces to deal with them. They did so in a perhaps more Iraqi way than we would have, but through a mixture of exactly the same factors as we would use in dealing with disturbances on the streets in any of our communities. In other words, the local political leadership and the security forces— the police, or others—deal with them and try to calm the situation. That is the position that we are trying to reach. I hope that that has been of assistance to the hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey). Some people become obsessed with the specifics of the assessment, but in our view we remain on course. However, we have to make sure that the conditions are right and that everybody is able to move at the same pace with us along this route.
	In Afghanistan, the challenges are different and the environment is different, but many of the basic principles are the same. We cannot succeed by military force alone, but at the same time, progress is impossible without basic stability and security. As a result of our efforts, basic security is improving but it is still under threat. In one of the world's poorest countries, where development is desperately required, the Taliban stand in the way, callously indifferent to the interests of the local people.

Des Browne: The hon. Gentleman, who served in Afghanistan and made a contribution to the improvement there, obviously knows what he is talking about. He will have noticed that I made a written statement today about the normal roulement of the forces in Afghanistan, and he will see from it that we intend to make a contribution to the replacement for the Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps, which will be led by General McNeil. So the hon. Gentleman is correct in suggesting that we will make a contribution, and we will of course look for officers with the talent to do so. As he knows, providing such leadership is one of the great contributions that we can make. It is very highly valued and sought after by our NATO allies—and, indeed, beyond that, across the world. Everywhere I go, Ministers of Defence ask me whether their officers can train with ours in our officer training system in the United Kingdom. We should be proud that we are able to do that. That we can give our senior officers the opportunity to show their expertise and to make that contribution internationally is an enormous positive. I see no reluctance to go among those who are candidates for such jobs; indeed, some who have done so ask me whether they can stay longer than was planned.
	It is precisely because of Afghanistan's clear and overwhelming humanitarian need that the international community is united in its support. That unity, embodied by NATO's military presence, has delivered real change in the last five years, and I make no apology for restating that. Not only is that point often lost in the urgency of immediate events; it is also the clearest demonstration of the role of defence in the world that I could hope to give.
	In the past five years, the terrorist training camps have gone and in their place is a democratically elected Government. Of course, we can find criticisms of that Government, but we should be honest with ourselves about where they have come from and the circumstances of that country; we sometimes set an unrealistic standard against which to examine them. Education is spreading. Some 6 million children are in school, and more than 13,000 primary and secondary schools have been reconstructed. School enrolment has quadrupled. The schools are full of girls, and women are able to teach once again. New health clinics are opening and vaccination programmes are savinglives. Most importantly, according to the UN, nearly5 million refugees have returned home, believing that their country has a future.
	That future now hinges of the fate of the south and east. It is here that the struggle with the Taliban is being played out, and where the needs of the Afghan people are most acute. If we can support the Government in extending their influence into these previously lawless areas, build the capacity of the Afghan security forces and deliver demonstrable progress to the local people, the Taliban's complete lack of any positive alternative vision for the future will be exposed. Only then will they finally and completely be rejected.

Des Browne: I have read about recommendations of this nature from a number of sources, including from people who have extensive experience in dealing with these issues. If I thought that that was a solution to the problem and was persuaded by the argument, I would readily agree. It seems such a simple thing to do, but the flaw in that proposal is that we could never be assured, in a country that lacks basic administration, that we were not simply encouraging the doubling of the crop. Until we can get an administration in place that can assure us that we are not, by putting more money into poppies, simply saying to the farmers, "You can grow some for us, but you can continue to grow them for the dealers, as well, and make twice as much money", I would not be prepared to spend money in that way.
	We have to recognise that dealing with narcotics in such an environment requires us to put in place the basic parts of the rest of our drugs plan. We need to improve the ability to administer these regions. We need a justice system—an issue that I was talking about earlier, but in a different context—that works. We need police forces, particularly anti-narcotics forces, who can arrest people—the key middle-ground people—in the confidence that those people will go into the justice system and stay in it. Once a basic administration is established and the pressure on, and intimidation of, the peasant farmer is relieved, it will then be possible to adopt some of the more sophisticated approaches. However, until then, we need to concentrate on building up the basic parts of the infrastructure that are needed. Having said that, this is a very serious problem. The crop that is currently planted in Helmand and in the south of the country was planted and in the ground before we got there.

Des Browne: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I shall try to exercise some discipline, too, by not taking interventions.
	All the points that the hon. Gentleman makes are factually correct and I accept them. I do not dismiss his suggestion out of hand, but given our inability at the moment to ensure a level of administration in Helmand province that would prevent the farmers from simply doubling the crop, the balance of the argument comes down in my favour. But that does not mean that in the future, when we are in a position to do so, we will not look at some of those suggestions.
	The most important thing that we can do is prevent opium production becoming the economy of the country, whoever is buying it. We have to get the pariahs off the backs of the peasant farmers. Bythe pariahs I mean those who demand that the farmers grow the crop and use extreme violence against them if they are not prepared to do so. We need a system of justice that prevents such people from behaving in that way with impunity in those communities. Diverting our attention to another issue when we should be using our resources to achieve that is, arguably, the wrong thing to do, but we can continue to have the debate and there are valid arguments on both sides.
	It is only by securing the south and east against the Taliban that we will safeguard the wider progress already made in Kabul, the north and the west. It is for that reason that we took on this difficult task alongside the Americans, the Canadians, Dutch, Danes, Romanians, Australians and Estonians. We knew that it would be tough and so it proved to be. But we also knew we had the robust, professional armed forces that could deliver in that environment. Over the summer they faced down the Taliban, beating them in every tactical engagement. They released the Taliban stranglehold on many parts of Helmand province and allowed us to begin the vital tasks of reconstruction and building local capacity. Over the winter they have continued to keep the Taliban on the back foot.
	The work done in Kajaki exemplifies that. The Royal Marines have been taking on Taliban forces around the Kajaki dam, which has the potential to deliver power to much of Helmand's population. They have challenged the Taliban's control of the surrounding area and have cleared the cave complexes they previously used as a base. In doing so, they have started to open the way for reconstruction work to take place to renovate the dam. That will be a long-term task, but it serves to illustrate the connection between security and development. I urge hon. Members to bear in mind examples like that, and many others, when they are tempted to question whether our mission is really one of reconstruction.
	There is, however, a long way to go in Afghanistan, and particularly in the south. The Taliban have been knocked back but they are not finished. Even now the Royal Marines are keeping them under constant pressure, keeping them off balance, to protect the reconstruction taking place in Lashkar Gah and elsewhere. Hon. Members will, I am sure, have seen and read the stories of their bravery in recent weeks.
	The task is not ours alone, but one that belongs to NATO and to the international community as a whole. In Seville next week, I will continue to press this point on our alliance partners. I will emphasise that the UK is playing its part, as NATO's second largest contributor in Afghanistan after the US. Earlier today, I issued a statement confirming our continued commitment, with the roulement of forces in April and the extension until 2009 of key capabilities such as Harrier, Apache and the Royal Engineers. As ever, we will keep our forces under review, but the next step is to push NATO as a whole to review its force levels and force generation, which I will be doing in Seville. I will keep the House informed of progress and any implications for the UK's own force structures.
	Afghanistan has illustrated in the boldest terms the need for flexible, expeditionary armed forces. We have one of the few forces in the world that has a balance of sheer military capability, immense operational experience, and flexibility across a range of roles. Even so, no one tells me more regularly than military commanders that success in many of the operations that we undertake cannot be delivered by force of arms alone. There is absolute recognition of the need for a comprehensive approach, one that combines all levers of power—economic, developmental, diplomatic and military. In Afghanistan, we have honed that approach, starting with our first provincial reconstruction team in Mazar e Sharif in 2003, and now embodied in the strong cross-Government team working in Helmand.
	We must continue to strive to do more, and to strengthen our ability to work as a team in difficult, insecure environments. The armed forces can tackle some non-military tasks. Engineers can help with reconstruction and the military's organisational flair has wide utility in times of crisis, as we have seen in a wide variety of situations, from humanitarian relief in the Pakistan earthquake to dealing with foot and mouth disease back in the UK. But we also need to develop the ability to deploy specialist skills that the military cannot provide, such that they can be there, on the first day of a new operation, making a difference.
	We must also get better at finding local solutions to the problems we face, which reflect the culture and mores of the societies we are trying to help. Our aims are driven by principle, but our implementation must become far more practical, in building local politics free from corruption, and especially in the sphere of law and order. A working supreme court is an admirable thing, but it may take 10 years to deliver. A working local court is essential and may take only months to set up. Ask an ordinary Afghan or Iraqi which gives him the greatest sense of progress and he will say the local court every time. Our problem is that many of us in the west charged with development often seem to start from the opposite end.
	I have dwelt on Iraq, Afghanistan and NATO for much of this speech. I believe that they represent most clearly what our armed forces can and should be doing to promote peace and stability. I had intended to turn briefly to our other activities, but given the time I suspect that it might be better if I left that for my right hon. Friend the Minister when he responds to the debate, in which those issues will almost certainly be raised.

Des Browne: The White Paper published some months ago contained most of what I want to say about Trident, and I have also answered parliamentary questions and spoken extensively outside the House on the matter. My hon. Friend knows that the Government recommend that we should invest in new platforms and boats for the Trident system, so that future generations can benefit as we have from that deterrent. The world is a very uncertain place, but the indications are that the future threat could be similar, if not identical, to the one that we face. I know that he disagrees: I know why he adopts his position, and I honour it, but I believe that the balance of the argument lies with those who wish to make the investment that I have described.
	As to when the decision will have to be made, I can tell my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) that the Select Committee has been looking at that question with some intensity. We should wait for its report before we have a debate on the matter in the House, but I anticipate that that debate—when hon. Members will have an opportunity to make a decision—will take place some time in March.
	We ask a lot of our armed forces. They work in the harshest environments, in a huge variety of roles and situations. When called upon to do so, they fight like no one else, but they also do much more. They uphold Governments and help to build nations. They are a genuine force for good in the world and are admired as such internationally.
	The work that our armed forces do is not about forcing western values or structures on others. It is about helping people build their own societies, drawing on their own traditions. Security, stability, and the rule of law are not western values: they are universal, and our armed forces promote and exemplify them.
	We are proud of the work that our armed forces do, and the manner in which they do it. They are a credit to our nation.

Liam Fox: I begin by associating myself with everything that the Secretary of State said about the bravery of our troops, and the commitment of the civilian staff and others who maintain their efforts worldwide.
	We are all aware of the courage and professionalism of our armed forces as they face the trauma of combat in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere, but we should not forget the role played by service families. They too show great courage and commitment, and they bear much of the problem associated with separation or injury. Sometimes, we in this country should remember the maxim that an injured serviceman is an injured family. Our society should be more aware of the sacrifices that our armed forces make, and the problems that they face.
	Those of us in this country who enjoy the protection provided by our armed forces have a duty to support them. The news that emerged overnight shows that some people in our society are prepared to kidnap and kill forces personnel. Whatever their background, that is vile and repugnant. The mediaeval savagery that we have seen in recent times in the middle east has no place in this country, and I am sure that the whole House will want to congratulate our security services on stopping what appears to have been a disgusting and dastardly plot.
	We welcome this debate, and hope that a wide range of issues will be discussed—for example, how we have arrived at our current positions and force sizes, the threats that we face in Afghanistan and Iraq, the threats posed by Iran and the potential threat posed by Russia, the need to maintain our alliances, and the need to deal with changing global realities.
	First, how did we get to the position in which we find ourselves today? Over the Christmas holiday, I spent some time looking at the defence reviews held since the second world war—just the sort of sad thing that our jobs sometimes require us to do. They included the reviews conducted by Sandys, Healey, Mason, and Nott, as well as "Options for Change", "Frontline First" and this Government's strategic defence review. I was struck by the fact that most of them lacked a foreign-policy baseline. With two exceptions—"Options for Change" and the SDR—the stamp of the Treasury was clearly evident.
	In "Options for Change", there was a genuine attempt to look at the new strategic reality following the end of the cold war. Moreover, I would commend the SDR undertaken by the current Government's SDR perhaps above all the others: it was an extremely good review and came to very sensible conclusions about the sort of threats that the UK was likely to face.
	I returned from Washington this morning—and I apologise in advance for any lapses of concentration this afternoon—and it was interesting to hear there the growing view that all western powers were too keen to seek a peace a dividend at the end of the cold war. They did so too quickly, and did not pause to think about the possible threats that could arise from the fragmentation of the Soviet Union.
	In medicine, we used to say that the most useful instrument would be a retrospectoscope, and we would do well to take something of a reality check so that we can work out why this country and the US face some of our current problems—and I remind the House that the US Government have just announced a substantial increase of 95,000 in their armed forces, precisely to deal with some of those problems.
	The SDR was reasonable in its expectation that the UK should be able to carry out one medium-sized and one small operation simultaneously, plus an occasional additional small operation, but the defence planning assumptions that flowed from that have been exceeded in each of the past four years. We cannot maintain that approach for any length of time: it leads inevitably to overstretch, and to problems such as restrictions on leave and training and increased separation from families. The one sure way to create retention problems is by making servicemen and women unhappy, and the way to do that is by making their families unhappy. I am afraid that that is what is happening at the moment.
	Service families already face problems with education, housing and health care, so it does not take much to make a life in the services seem much less attractive than what is available outside. As has been noted in the House before, we need to examine those difficulties, taking account of the demographic and labour market statistics, because the trend of the last couple of years—with substantially more people leaving the armed forces than joining them—cannot be allowed to continue. Even if we are able to replace the personnel who leave, the problem of skills dilution will remain, and that cannot be in our armed forces' long-term interests.
	It is important to understand where we are in respect of our armed forces but, when we review expenditure, we must understand the realities of the increased tempo of their activities, and the effect that that has on them.
	The Secretary of State spoke about Afghanistan and Iraq, and I shall turn to those subjects now. His announcement of the roulement in Afghanistan contains a shift in the pattern of our troops' deployment, with the focus moving from Kabul to Helmand. Only 100 extra British troops are going to Afghanistan, but there will be 600 more in Helmand, because the number in Kabul is to be reduced.
	We support our troops, and therefore we support the mission. Although people who say that they support our troops in the abstract but do not support the mission may find that their approach goes down well in the House of Commons, it certainly does not go down well with our troops or their commanders. However, serious questions need to be raised in this House about why the British armed forces must shoulder yet more of the burden in the south of Afghanistan.
	It cannot be acceptable that British taxpayers are funding a greater proportion of the cost of those operations, or that the British military should have to shoulder more of the burden in the most dangerous part of Afghanistan. Where are our NATO allies? They spend substantially less on defence than this country. We spend 2.5 per cent. of gross domestic product on defence: we can argue about whether that is too much or too little, but it is substantially more than many of our NATO allies. For example, Germany spends only 1.4 per cent. of GDP, while Spain spends 1.2 per cent., and the Netherlands around 1.4 per cent.
	That is simply not acceptable in the long term. I know that the Secretary of State is forced by convention to be diplomatic about such matters, but I certainly am not. It is absolutely outrageous that, when we have the concept of shared security, we do not have properly shared risk. It is not acceptable for countries to reduce their defence expenditure and still expect us to give them the umbrella of NATO protection. It is not acceptable for them to operate according to caveats that mean that they serve in the safest parts of Afghanistan only or according to rules of engagement that are so restrictive that they can barely cross a road without phoning their national capitals. It cannot be in the long-term interests of NATO for that pattern to be repeated. If we want shared security, we have shared risk and shared burden-carrying.

Liam Fox: One need not look far beyond the borders of Iraq to see substantial Iranian influence, and to see Iran using as a proxy those who seek to do damage to the coalition troops. If the hon. Gentleman considers Iran's influence on Hezbollah, he will see just how much Iran was influencing events in Lebanon. Anyone who is naive enough to believe that Iran is a peace-loving country, and that the regime does not pose a threat to the region, is not looking at the same information as the rest of us. Disruption in Lebanon, and in Palestine via Hamas, control of Hezbollah, and insurrection in Iraq are all testaments to a regime that is certainly not to be trusted.
	I turn to an issue not often debated in the House: the substantial rearmament programme taking place in Russia. There has been such a focus on the middle east in recent times that very little has been said in the House or in our media about the growing and accelerating rearmament in Russia. The Russian national armament programme for 2007-15 will cost about $183 billion. Let me give the House a flavour of what the Russians intend to do with much of the money—and, it has to be said, with the many petrol dollars that we contribute to them. At the tactical level, they want 1,400 tanks, 4,100 infantry fighting vehicles, 3,000 armoured personnel carriers, 1,000 combat aircraft and helicopters, and 60 theatre quasi-ballistic missile systems. At the strategic level, they want69 Topol-M missiles with between 70 and 200 nuclear warheads, five nuclear ballistic missile submarines and 60 Bulava intercontinental ballistic missiles, with an increased number of warheads—that is, between 400 and 600.
	I mention that because the subject of what we are doing in terms of our nuclear deterrent has been raised in the House. We are set to introduce our next generation deterrent, which will have fewer warheads than at present, but the Russians are already investing heavily in more warheads. Not only that, but they have been careful to ensure that funds remain available, so that they can keep that expenditure going. As their oil and gas exports have increased, and because of the rise in the price of oil—every $1 rise in the price of a barrel of oil provides another $1 billion for the Russian exchequer—they have, through their stabilisation fund, built up large reserves that enable them to keep spending on defence, right through until 2015. As of1 September 2006, they had in their central bank's gold reserves almost $65 billion, and in their currency reserves they had $259 billion. While we are discussing our overstretch and what we can afford to spend on defence, Russia has been extraordinarily clever in ensuring that it will continue to improve and expand its capability, all at a time when the eyes of the west have been elsewhere.
	I mention that because it goes hand in hand with an increasing resource nationalism in Russia, and its increasing willingness to use natural resources, fossil fuels in particular, to achieve political ends. We saw the warning signs in the Baltic states, in Ukraine, in Georgia, and in Belarus. We now need to be aware of the potential threats posed by the Russian Government. Of course their forces were degraded, and of course until 2003 they were experiencing a vast reduction in their capabilities, especially their army and naval capabilities, but they are now building them up. I simply say in this debate about defence in the world that that is something that our country needs to keep an eye on. When we plan for our expenditure in future, we need to take into account the fact that a new and growing risk is posed in an area in which many of us had hoped there was a declining risk, following the end of the cold war.
	I shall mention one other subject before I end: the need for alliances. I have for some time held the view that politicians love the upside of globalisation. They love the prosperity and the trade, and they like the potential security. What politicians do not really like, and do not like to talk about, is the downside of globalisation: the shared risk—the increased risk exposure to asymmetric threat, for example. If we live in an interdependent and sensitive global economy, we cannot be isolated from the risks of events in any other part of that global economy. Some of my American colleagues are barely capable of giving a speech without saying, "America will be energy-independent," but that is a fat lot of use if al-Qaeda take down a supertanker in the Malacca strait, creating not only an environmental disaster but a potential crisis in confidence for the Japanese or Chinese economy, and a shock to the oil price.
	In future, we will all live in a much more interdependent world, but we are trying to deal with a properly globalised economy with political structures that were designed for the end of the second world war, and with military structures that were largely designed for the cold war. We require leadership that brings those international structures up to date, so that we can find ways of co-operating to deal with shared risk. That is why the Riga summit was such a disappointment and such a failure. At that summit, we needed to get a redefinition of NATO's role, looking well ahead into the years to come. We needed to talk about the decision-making processes that NATO might have, to talk about the funding and the mechanisms, and how we would get countries to make the appropriate commitments to funding for NATO. EU-NATO relations are at an all-time low, and that needed to be addressed at the same time.
	The NATO alliance should continue to be the primary military structure for the United Kingdom's security. Our alliance with the United States is the most important alliance that we have. The size of the American defence umbrella could not be matched, even in the medium term, even if our European partners were dramatically to increase their expenditure. America, by virtue of heritage, culture, language and history remains our ally of choice. I have no problem with the European Union's being able to act as part of the delivery arm of NATO—for example, through the Berlin-plus arrangements—if that is what is desired, but I have a problem with the EU wanting to supplant NATO rather than to supplement it. All those arguments should have come out at the Riga summit.
	There is one other issue that Europe and NATO need to deal with: Turkey. It was deeply disturbing to see the passing of the Armenian resolution in France, which was almost certain to alienate Turkey at a time when Turkey is of enormous importance strategically to this country, NATO and Europe. Purposely to set out to alienate Turkish opinion is extremely dangerous. To have Turkey move into the arms of either fundamentalist Islam or the new-found, newly nationalist Russia would be to fail to recognise that throughout the cold war we attempted to stop a sulking and resentful Turkey moving towards the Soviet Union.
	There is the potential for Congress in the United States to pass exactly the same resolution as the French. That could result only in a hugely adverse reaction from Turkey. Turkey is one of the main allies of NATO and a country of enormous geopolitical importance. We need to keep it on good terms. If those in some European countries—France, Germany and Austria—think that they would have problems incorporating Turkey into the European Union, they might want to think what an unfriendly fundamentalist state on the border of Greece would mean for European security. That may be the choice that they face.
	Defence in this country has traditionally been a bipartisan issue, and it would be of enormous benefit to the country, to our process of government and to our security if it continued to be so. For that to happen the country needs to have a genuine debate about its level of commitments and its level of resources. If we want to maintain our current commitments, it is impossible to keep exceeding our defence planning assumptions and to continue with the same budget for any length of time. Of course, our armed forces will cope. They have a can-do mentality. They will try to do whatever they can with whatever we give them, but if we are genuine about the role of the United Kingdom, we will have to look at the resource base if we are going to continue at this tempo. Alternatively, if we feel that we cannot afford the resources, we have to look at the level of commitment that the United Kingdom is able to make within the wider alliances that we have.
	When the Government undertake the comprehensive spending review, they must take into account what was said in the strategic defence review and how defence planning assumptions have been exceeded. Are they still committed to the SDR and do they still wish to act within the DPAs? Those are important questions and this side of the House will want to get clear answers when we get further details of the comprehensive spending review. Things cannot go on as they are. If the Government will not change their approach and insist on carrying on with things as they are, despite all the difficulties that have been so clearly enunciated by so many of those who have been in charge of our armed forces, the only conclusion will be that we have to change the Government.

Nick Brown: I fully understand and acknowledge my hon. Friend's constituency interest in these matters, and I accept what she said about the Defence Committee's views. I shall make a similar argument myself.
	It is also argued that the independent strategic nuclear deterrent affects our status in the European Union and with America. Although I think those are the real arguments that underpin the views of those who believe in the independent nuclear deterrent, I also think that they are the worse arguments of all. There is a pretty strong case for reforming the way in which the Security Council works and who sit on it as permanent members, and reform should not be driven by who has and who does not have nuclear weapons.
	Our relations with our strategic partners in the European Union and the United States have very little to do with Britain's military capabilities and everything to do with mutual self-interest, bound together by trading and commercial relationships and a shared belief in international conventions and the rule of law. Britain will punch above its weight in the world if we spend money on the threats that actually confront us, rather than on those that do not, and spend money on things that those who are poorer and more disadvantaged than ourselves really need.

Nick Harvey: I welcome the opportunity to have the debate today. I welcome the Defence Secretary back from his recent trip to Baghdad, safe and able to give us an up-to-date account of events there. I quite understand that he has had to keep an important commitment elsewhere, which means that he has left his place. I also welcome the speech from the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), which was thought-provoking and covered a wide canvas in a balanced way. It invited us, in a constructive tone, to debate issues that we must debate now and on future occasions.
	There is no doubt that our role in the world and the role of our armed forces have moved a great deal in a relatively short time. Although it seems a long time, it is not so long ago that we were still in the atmosphere of the cold war and the Soviet threat. One of the points that the hon. Gentleman made was that in a global era, we are in every sense in a state of interdependency. The solutions to the problems that we face can be arrived at only through our international alliances and by working with others, particularly with NATO, the United Nations and, on occasion, the European Union. All those institutions have major faults and flaws, but the UN it is the only show in town, so it is essential that we all work together to rebuild and develop further the authority of the United Nations and its capacity to help bring and maintain peace in various parts of the world.
	The 1998 strategic defence review identified the role of Britain's armed forces as acting as a force for good around the world. In many respects, the Prime Minister's recent speech in Plymouth updated that commitment and looked forward to Britain continuing to do that. No doubt hon. Members in all parts of the House agree and see that as our role in the future.
	As the hon. Member for Woodspring said, if we have that lofty ambition for ourselves, there is without doubt a mismatch between the amount of commitments that we are taking on and the amount of resource that we are devoting to them. We need a debate about making more resource available. I am sympathetic to those who suggest that that is necessary, but even if we arrived at a consensus, and even if the Treasury were part of the consensus and we moved in that direction immediately, there would be a time lag between that decision and the additional capability that might result. Whether we put extra resources into manpower or into more and better equipment for the future, each of those would take time to feed through to our fighting capacity.
	The problems arising from the mismatch, the stretch, the impact on families, the result of acting beyond the defence planning assumptions, and the effect of not adhering to the harmony guidelines are all immediate problems. That is why, in the short term, achieving a better balance between the commitment that we are taking on and the resource that we have at our disposal to carry it out must entail some reduction in our commitment.
	I therefore welcome the Secretary of State's further explanations of the ongoing situation in Iraq. I believe that the Prime Minister is right when he says that we would all like to see troops coming back from Iraq as soon as possible and that that can be done only after we have been in a position to hand over responsibility in the provinces that we are continuing to run.

Nick Harvey: I say again that hon. Members may have heard what they wanted to hear. It was made perfectly clear—and I make it perfectly clear again—that all actions taken at any given time obviously depend on the conditions. What we were suggesting was an illustrative time scale of what could be achieved— [Interruption.] Be that as it may, let us look at the situation in Iraq.
	As the Secretary of State described it, further progress is being made in Iraq. I welcome that and I absolutely accept that there is a difference between the prevailing security situation in the south, for which we are responsible, and the situation in Baghdad, for which the Americans are responsible. The suggestion that, because we have different views and a different anticipation of what commitments we might need to make in the future, we are somehow clashing or falling out with the Americans is simply not the point at all. I repudiate that. We are allies of the Americans—allies in what we are trying to achieve in Iraq and allies in what we are trying to achieve in Afghanistan—but when Britain is so stretched in terms of our resources, I believe that we would be better able to honour that alliance by concentrating our efforts more clearly on Afghanistan in the future. I think that that is what the British public believe and certainly what our armed forces feel. The point has already been made that we should respond to what the armed forces themselves say and want—and they have made that clear to me and my colleagues again and again and again. There is no doubt whatever in my mind that that is the situation.
	Before we paint too rosy a picture of what is happening in Iraq, where there have undoubtedly been some achievements, we need to recognise that the situation is still very bloody and that people are still losing their lives at an alarming rate. There is still an awfully long way to go in persuading the Iraqis that what we are trying to achieve there is actually having any sort of benign impact. Without raking over the whole debate about how we got into the Iraq war—we all understand which side we come from in that debate—there must surely be some acknowledgement that pre-invasion planning was lax, short-sighted and superficial and that if we had made better estimations of the domestic situation in Iraq, fewer lives might perhaps have been lost. British loss of life, tragic though it is, has been mercifully smaller than it might have been, but the loss of life among the Iraqi population has been absolutely woeful. I sometimes hear the Prime Minister moving the goal posts about the rationale for going in, and talking about regime change and how despicable Saddam was—none of which was presented as an objective at the outset. Appalling though Saddam and his killing regime were, the number of lives lost was nothing in comparison with what has happened in the four years since wewent in.
	We must remember that, apart from the inestimable cost in lives, the war has also cost a fortune in money. It is no wonder that our resources are so stretched. The war has cost us approximately £24 million a day, which will total £5 billion on 5 April. The huge black hole in our defence figures is therefore unsurprising.
	It is essential to remember what the Baker report said about the necessity of engaging with neighbouring states. I regret that the Bush regime appears to have chosen to forget that. I have not heard as much as I would like from this country about trying to get the idea back to centre stage. It is essential that we engage and form a rapport with Iran. I agree with the hon. Member for Woodspring that, even at the height of the cold war, we sustained our efforts and dialogue with the Soviet Union. It is vital to step up and sustain our dialogue with Iran. It is also crucial to engage with Syria and other neighbouring states.

Don Touhig: Indeed. No matter how good the Government think they are—or local government think it is—at delivering services, without the voluntary sector in Britain many people's quality of life would not be as good as it is. I pay tribute to those who work in that sector.
	When I visited Selly Oak I met NHS personnel, and we saw a field hospital in operation. Every member of the NHS to whom I spoke was greatly impressed by the way in which Defence Medical Services takes medical support, help and care to our services in the front line. However, I am concerned about the increasing gaps in Defence Medical Services personnel, and the pressure to call up medical reservists working in the NHS.
	I know that recruitment is always a challenge for the armed forces at a time when our economy is strong, especially when we need more staff for Defence Medical Services. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will be able to give us some idea of what the Department is doing to fill the gaps, because those Defence Medical Services personnel are very important to the support and sustenance of our troops, wherever they may be serving.
	There is common consent that troops on operations around the world receive first-class care and attention, and it goes without saying that that is crucial to their well-being. It is long-established practice, however, that responsibility for the medical care of ex-servicemen and women passes to the NHS. I do not detract from the wonderful work that the NHS does, but I think we should do more. That is relevant to what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire, North (Jim Sheridan) about the voluntary services. If we truly value the men and women who are currently serving around the world in support of Britain, when they become veterans they should be able to receive specialised medical provision when they need it, and in my view that service should be provided by the Ministry of Defence. It is important for Defence Medical Services to continue treatment and support after service when people are demobilised, in partnership with the NHS.
	I know that there is a view in the MOD that our servicemen and women can obtain priority treatment in the NHS when they have left the services, but I see little evidence of that in practice. I know how difficult it can be. One way in which the MOD could provide aftercare is through the reserves mental health programme, details of which were announced by my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg), Under-Secretary of State for Defence and Minister responsible for veterans, in a statement to the House on 21 November 2006. The programme is open to any current or former member of our volunteer or regular reserves who has been demobilised since 1 January 2003 following overseas operational deployment, and who believes that it may have adversely affected his health. He can ask his GP to refer him to the programme. The GP is then kept informed of the individual's progress to ensure that both he and RMHP staff are in possession of all the facts about the individual's continuing health needs.
	That was a groundbreaking development, but although it is a step in the right direction I believe that we should go further. I would like to hear that the Ministry of Defence is progressing work to offer that after-care to veterans who have been in the regular forces. I looked into that when I was in the Department and I know the difficulties and problems involved, but I hope that that work is being progressed.
	Many Members will be aware of the excellent work done by Combat Stress. It does tremendous work in supporting veterans suffering from psychological disability as a result of their service in the British armed forces around the world. I recently spent some time with one of the workers for that charity, visiting veterans in my constituency; some of them are in their 20s, and they are suffering terribly as a result of incidents that took place during their service in the British armed forces.
	I was hugely impressed by the commitment of Combat Stress, and I praise the MOD, which provides about £2 million a year to help it; it is worth every penny of that. However, it is time that the Government took on the ongoing role of supporting those who have left our armed forces. To do that would send a good message to those currently serving Britain on the front line around the world. Such work could, perhaps, be done in partnership with Combat Stress.
	In terms of the issues that I have touched on, benefit would be gained from there being a much enhanced Department for Veterans with a wider remit to take responsibility for veterans' health care and welfare and employment issues, and to ensure that the Veterans Agency becomes the first point of contact when people need help after demobilisation. Again, if that were done it would send a good message of care and support to our troops around the world.
	There is such a Department in the United States of America. Since 1989 the Department of Veterans Affairs has had a Cabinet-level position in the US Government. I am not suggesting that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister should engage in a reshuffle at the current time, or that we follow the American example, but I know from my own experience that the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, who is the Minister for veterans, is responsible for everything from the Met Office to the Hydrographic Office, from MOD Police to low-flying aircraft, and from recruitment and training to reserves and cadets.
	The Government have done a great deal to demonstrate that we value the 10 million people in the veterans community. We created the first ever veterans Minister, but it is time that we take the next step and create a Department for Veterans Affairs. In terms of the wider debate, I hope that that would send a positive message to the men and women serving in the British armed forces around the world that when they return to this country, they and their families will be cared for, and that that care will be ongoing—that as long as they need that we will be there for them, as they are currently there for us.

James Arbuthnot: The right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig) has just done an extremely good job in singing the praises of the help that is available to those outstanding men and women who have served their country. I commend him for the work that he did when he was in government to improve those services, and I commend the Veterans Agency for the work that it does.
	Members who serve on the Defence Committee are very lucky because we have the chance to visit our troops in the theatres where they are deployed. Although we read in our newspapers stories of poor equipment and demoralised men and women, we have the good fortune to see the reality. There are problems—as the Secretary of State was the first to acknowledge. We on the Defence Committee consider there to be problems with strategic lift. When we were in Iraq, we experienced problems both with lift and with armoured vehicles—those that we have there are old and hot.
	The pressure on our armed forces leads to all sorts of pressures in terms of reductions in training. On that point, I congratulate the Secretary of State on his constructive response to my concerns about the future of Bordon as a result of the defence training review. It is essential that the Ministry of Defence works closely with the community of Bordon to ensure that that review is good for it as well as for the MOD. I thank the Secretary of State for ensuring me that it will be.
	Despite all the problems that we have read about in the newspapers, when we visit our troops in theatre, we meet people of quite extraordinary quality and with very high morale, because of the way that they are led, the job that they are doing and the fact that they are extraordinarily busy. They also have better personal equipment than they have ever had, as my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Milton Keynes (Mr. Lancaster) confirmed in his intervention on the hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey). The disparities between personal equipment and larger equipment are the reconciliation of the little debate that they had. Our troops are not only the best in the world; they are, I believe, the last remaining institution in this country that has the deep respect of the country and of the world, so they must be doing something right.
	Last June, the Defence Committee visited Iraq—we debated that last week, so I will not spend too long on it—and we were most impressed by the work being done in Basra then by the 20th Armoured Brigade and others. There is a real difference between Multi-National Division (South-East) Basra, and the rest of Iraq. We came away with the impression that the south-east of Iraq is not a hopeless case. The Iraqi 10th division were rapidly becoming more capable, and it should be possible to hand over more responsibility to them and to be confident that they will acquit themselves well.
	I welcome what the Secretary of State said today about the remarks last week of Ambassador Khalilzad, who reminded us all that we have two roles. One is to run and to hand over as soon as is feasible MND (South-East) to the Iraqis; but the other is as a coalition partner of the United States. For that reason, in that latter role the Defence Committee visited not only Basra but Baghdad. Again, we came away with the conclusion that the situation in Baghdad and in Iraq as a whole was not hopeless. We were impressed by the courage and determination of the politicians there, especially those who have been targeted and who have lost family members to terrorism in Iraq. They want to run Iraq themselves and they want to do it well; we must give them that opportunity. The question must be whether they are going to be able to do so.
	I am not convinced that the United States' plan is going to succeed. I am not convinced that 20,000 extra troops will be enough to cure the grievous mistakes that were made in the first two years. I am not convinced that the plan is supported even in the United States of America, let alone in Iraq. I am dismayed by the wholly different tones of the Iraq study group report and of the Kagan report, on which the United States' plan has clearly been based. I am confused by the British Government's support of both. How can one run a coalition when there is such a completely different approach to constructive engagement with Iran and with Syria? I do not know the answer to that question, and we do not get one by simply pretending that there is no difference. There is one thing that I am absolutely sure of: we should not be committed to an arbitrary date for the withdrawal of our troops from Iraq, notwithstanding the utterly charming and delightful defence of his position by the hon. Member for North Devon. I gather that we have now moved to an illustrative timetable for leaving Iraq.
	The Defence Committee also visited Afghanistan, last July. Again, we met some extraordinarily impressive British people serving their country, not only in the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps and the 16th Air Assault Brigade, but—crucially to the efforts of our forces in Helmand—the wonderful Chinook crews based in my constituency in Odiham. We also met the Apache crews. I am pleased to say that I had a hand in buying those fantastic helicopters some years ago. Little did we think that they would be pressed into the role of tactical lift helicopters, as we saw in that outstanding attack on the Taliban stronghold. That is only one example of the imagination and courage shown day in and day out by British men and women in theatre.
	In our report, we express concerns about national caveats from NATO rules of engagement. I repeat those concerns now. We expressed concerns about the commitment of other NATO allies towards an engagement for which they voted. I repeat those concerns now. My Committee will hold an inquiry into NATO to see whether it is doing as well as it could and what its future might be. I hope that we might be able to fill the gaps left by the Riga summit, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring rightly referred. The Committee expressed scepticism that rebuilding Afghanistan could be achieved within three years. I do not express that scepticism now: it has turned to utter disbelief.
	For all of those reasons and more, we will hold a second inquiry into the deployment to Afghanistan this year. To put it in a nutshell, I am becoming increasingly worried that we are trying to bring to Afghanistan the concept of the rule of law and of central government, concepts that the country has never actually had or wanted. We are trying to do that at the same time as we are destroying the livelihood of many Afghans. That is not a recipe for success, and we see the consequences in the radicalisation of British youth here at home. There is no sense of any co-ordinated campaign plan to win the hearts and minds of people in Afghanistan, Iraq or even in the United Kingdom.
	On the way to Afghanistan, we also visited Pakistan, where I was left with one strong impression. It is all very well for us to criticise Pakistan for not doing enough to bear down on the Taliban, but the border is porous because, decades ago, the British insisted that it should be. It cannot be closed now because Afghanistan and Pakistan cannot agree on the line, so Afghanistan will not allow the fencing of the border that Pakistan has proposed. Pakistan has also deployed and lost more troops than the whole of the rest of the coalition put together. So before we insist on President Musharraf submitting himself to yet further assassination attempts, let us appreciate what he is up against and what he has already done.
	British troops are deployed not only in Iraq and Afghanistan. The right hon. Member for Islwyn mentioned the fact that they are deployed all over the world, including in Cyprus, which the Committee also visited. A tour in Cyprus is widely regarded as a sunshine tour. All I can say is that we arrived in Cyprus in pouring rain. We visited soldiers who were part of the theatre reserve battalion who were either just back from or just about to go to Iraq and Afghanistan. Our forces serving with the UN were living in appalling accommodation, doing their best to solve a truly intractable problem. The countries involved should get a grip of themselves and stop putting burdens on the rest of the international community. It is no sunshine tour.
	Of central importance to our future defence is the subject raised by the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend (Mr. Brown)—the decision on the strategic nuclear deterrent. My Committee is engaged in the third of its inquiries into that issue, this one on the Government's White Paper. We intend to produce a report in time to inform the debate in the House, which we expect to have in March. As I said at the beginning of my speech, the Defence Committee is very lucky. We are truly busy, and likely to remain so.

Peter Kilfoyle: First, I want to add my voice to the House's expressions of admiration for our servicemen and women, both those who are in the field now and those who were active in the past. It is important to put that on the record, because it is often assumed that those of us who take a view different from the consensus evident in the House are somehow less patriotic or supportive of our armed forces. That is patently not true.
	I urge the House to look at the amendment that was tabled to the motion for the war in Iraq. I wrote that amendment, and had the honour of moving it in this House. People tend to remember the first half of the amendment but not the second, which extended our support for and recognition of the courage and dedication of our professional servicemen and women. It is important that that be recalled.
	This debate is entitled "Defence in the World". I cannot think of a more euphemistic misnomer, especially given that the Secretary of State's contribution seemed to revolve around the offensives in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Afghanistan deployment was legitimate and received international approval, but all of us now know in our heart of hearts that the Iraq offensive was an illegal campaign to effect regime change—an action specifically outlawed under the UN charter. Perhaps we can debate that on another day, but I am sure that that is view taken by the majority of people.
	I hope that the hon. Member for Woodspring(Dr. Fox) does not take exception when I say that the tone of his remarks when he described the threatposed by Russia and Iran reminded me a little ofDr. Strangelove. I endorse what various other hon. Members said when they pointed out that Iran, which is increasingly besieged by nuclear power nations, does not share the British perspective on the matter. Again, Russia sees NATO encroaching further into the east and the US establishing a string of bases around its southern flank, so it is not surprising that it does not feel especially sanguine about the disarmament that the rest of us aspire to.
	Most of all, I want to speak about the Trident programme. I was disappointed that the Secretary of State devoted only 2 minutes of his 51-minute speech to that programme. I understood the reasons that he gave, even though they had to be prompted by an intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn). Without that intervention the Secretary of State would not have mentioned Trident at all, but it is too important a matter for us to pass over lightly, although we had a debate on it recently.
	The report from the Defence Committee published last June said that there was no need to embark on the Trident programme before 2014, and that matters were being undertaken with undue haste. I have read the White Paper a couple of times and, like a lot of people, was rather confused by the arguments being presented. However, I held in mind what the Prime Minister told the House on the subject. He said:
	"Ultimately, this decision is a judgment—a judgment about possible risks to our country and its security, and the place of the deterrent in thwarting those risks."—[ Official Report, 4 December 2006; Vol. 454, c. 21.]
	The Prime Minister was absolutely right, and I could not disagree with that sentiment. However, in reply to a question from me he said that he relies heavily on experts. We all have to do that, but it is a commonplace to say that one man's expert is another man's dupe. There are certainly plenty of both around, so I went to my own experts. I sent each a copy of the White Paper and asked them what they made of it.
	I should be happy to share with Ministers the response that they produced, although they may feel that it is beneath them. The seven-page reply to the White Paper, entitled "The Future of the United Kingdom's Nuclear Deterrent", was written by four people: Dick Garwin, who was in the House recently and chaired the President's Science Advisory Committee; Philip Coyle, Assistant Secretary of Defence and director for operational testing and evaluation; Ted A. Postol, the scientific advisor to the Chief of Naval Operations and the man who instituted the Trident II programme; and Frank von Hippel, who was Assistant Director for National Security of the White House Office of Science and Technology. Their credentials stand up to scrutiny, even for someone like me. They went through the arguments in the White Paper and made, in my view, extremely valid points which even I, a layman, can understand.
	In summary, the reply concluded that the decision on Trident was premature. That echoes in part the June 2006 report of the Defence Select Committee. The reasons are straightforward and simple to understand. First, it is argued that the lifespan of the existing submarines is longer than presented because of operational changes that have taken place since the cold war. If equipment designed to last 30 years on the basis that it may be at sea for 18 months in every five years is at sea for only 12 months in every five years, obviously the stresses and strains will be reduced. Secondly, when the Government talk about the lifespan of the Vanguard class submarines, which are the platform for Trident missiles, they have changed the goalposts. Now they speak of a lifespan of 25 years with perhaps a further five. It has been asked whether the vessels can last longer if they are refitted. The answer is no, the Vanguard class cannot have their lifespan extended. When we point out that the Ohio class submarines, which do a similar job, can have their lifespan extended by up to 30 years, so somehow there must be different laws of physics.

Peter Kilfoyle: I accept that difference. By the way, I made a slip of the tongue. The extension is from 30 to 44 years, not an extension of 30 years, for the Ohio class. Nevertheless, that is a considerable extension.
	There are arguments about replacing parts. There is a cogent response about steam generators, for example. It is cheaper to change parts than to change the whole vessel. What I do not understand is this: if the strategic objectives of the submarines and their missiles have not changed, in extremis could we not just replicate the same design? Could we not just have a replacement consisting of a second generation of Vanguard submarines if it is necessary, which I do not believe it is? Why do we have to design a new submarine and a whole new fleet at an exorbitant cost? If, in accepting the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) about the report that is to come, we put the tender out to BAE Systems, which produced the last submarine, yet its technical specification does not match up to the advanced specifications of older American submarines, would it not be foolish to have the same company making the same product when we know it will be inferior? The real question is: why are we being forced into an early decision? Do we have to decide now? No.

Peter Viggers: Much as I would like to speak about strategic and procurement issues, I shall defer that to another occasion, because I want to talk about personnel—the men and women in the armed forces. Everyone is unstinting in their praise of those who serve in the armed forces. I was fortunate enough to be a member of the Defence Committee for a while, and like its Chairman, my right hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot), who is in the Chamber, I very much enjoyed visiting our service personnel and was impressed by their work. They are outstanding.
	The civilian world has moved on, but the armed forces world has not done so to the same extent. Doctors who used to work in the evenings and at nights and weekends no longer do so. The working time directive limits the working hours of heavy goods vehicle drivers. Health and safety rules mean that, to assist baggage handling, there are limits on the individual items that can be carried on board aircraft. In many ways the civilian world has become a more regulated and protected place.
	The armed forces, however, have not become better regulated or better protected at all. When there is an emergency, health and safety go out of the window and working time directives have to be forgotten. I recall a visit to troops in Bosnia and Herzegovina shortly after they had moved into Vitez. We were impressed by the brilliant job they were doing; their living accommodation impressed us in a different way—it was appalling, and we admired the resilience with which the troops withstood their abominable living and working conditions.
	A year later the Defence Committee was back in Vitez, but the living conditions had not changed at all. We were disappointed about that and told the armed forces that they must give higher priority to the living conditions of their men. By that time the Dutch had turned up, and were living in perfectly acceptable accommodation—it even had flower beds outside—whereas our people were in exactly the same accommodation as before.
	In parts of the armed forces there seems to be a feeling that it is a sign of virility that troops can put up with almost any conditions. In Northern Ireland, for instance, living accommodation for our troops was absolutely abominable, in many cases. One of the reasons given for not improving it was that it would give a misleading signal to the local population—that we intended our troops to stay in Northern Ireland to assist the civil powers for a long time—so we needed to keep the accommodation as bad as it was to show that we were intending to leave. The idea that real men do not notice whether they live in a slum is wrong, and it is not the right thinking for the 21st century. Our troops deserve better—think of the lives that they live and the risks that they run. Hon. Members who have been to Northern Ireland will know that people there live from news bulletin to news bulletin. Families of people in the armed forces have to learn to put up with real, grinding anxiety, especially if they live in a dangerous area. Our servicemen and their families deserve and need special treatment, but too often they do not get it.
	So far I have talked about serving troops, but different circumstances apply when the military and civilian spheres overlap. Even in normal circumstances there are risks, hazards and problems for service families. Moving house inevitably causes disruption, and it is sometimes difficult for the wife or husband of a person in the armed forces to get a job. There are also problems for the children, who may have to change schools. In addition, some Ministry of Defence housing is substandard. The Government should try to understand the problems faced by service families. One example of the Ministry not taking account of those problems is its proposal to focus training in St. Athan in south Wales.
	Some 60 per cent. of service ships are based in Portsmouth, and most naval families have decided to make their homes in the south Hampshire area, so that they are near the place where their ship is based, and where they do their training, as that minimises domestic disruption. Moving engineering training to St. Athan will tear the heart out of the Navy, because service personnel undergoing training will be based in St. Athan during the week, but at the weekend they will need to travel back to their homes, which will probably still be in the Portsmouth area. That will place an intolerable burden on naval families.
	The worst problems of all occur when things go wrong. Sometimes, service personnel and their families are exposed to totally unacceptable conditions, and I shall give three examples. It is well publicised that there is a huge backlog of inquests in Oxfordshire because service personnel who are killed overseas are brought back to Brize Norton, and the inquest needs to take place in the Brize Norton area, which falls to the Oxfordshire coroner. It is intolerable that there should be a three-year delay in holding inquests. Three extra coroners are being drafted in, but there are still 70 cases outstanding. Think of the grief and distress that that will cause to families.

Peter Viggers: That would be one way of solving the problem. Another way, although it might require a change in legislation, would be to enable the inquests to be held elsewhere—for example, in the area that the serviceperson came from. As I will say later, what the Ministry of Defence should do, both in respect of that problem and others, is take on other Departments, such as the Home Office, and find a solution. I do not know what that solution is, but a solution must be found.
	My second concern relating to service personnel is about Defence Medical Services. The subject was mentioned by the right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig), who once had responsibility for it. Many a time, the House has heard me explain how distraught the population of Gosport and south Hampshire is that the only remaining military hospital, the Royal hospital Haslar, is to close. The Ministry of Defence is withdrawing funding from 31 March, and it is pinning its hopes on a move to Selly Oak hospital in Birmingham. The move is not working well—and it will not work. There are staff shortages—in some cases, of as much as two thirds or three quarters—in some medical specialties, particularly general medicine, orthopaedic medicine, general surgery and anaesthetics.
	Although it is possible for the Ministry of Defence to recruit people to the armed forces to train as doctors—their training is paid for, of course, by the Ministry—retention is a major problem. The overall plan was to move defence medical services to Selly Oak and to build a £200 million centre for defence medical personnel, accommodation and training. That was cancelled, and the plan now is to use RAF Lichfield, which is 15 miles away, on the wrong side of Birmingham. That is not working, and I forecast that it will not work. I asked to visit Selly Oak hospital because I was told by the Ministry of Defence that the plan was working fairly well. That is not what I hear elsewhere. I was told that I could not visit the hospital, and instead a briefing would be given in my constituency to people who are concerned about the issue. I have reiterated my request because I think that it is my duty to go to Selly Oak to see how the hospital is functioning.
	There is an alternative solution to the problem—a south Hampshire solution. We should retain Haslar hospital, which is needed for civilian purposes anyway and can also be used as a mess and training centre, and we should link Haslar not only with Portsmouth, with which it is currently linked, but with Southampton university hospital. That would give medical training to the personnel who require it, across a broad spectrum, and would solve the problem of retention and morale in Defence Medical Services.
	The third area where the Ministry of Defence is letting down its personnel is housing. I want to argue from the particular to the general. The particular case involves a constituent of mine who served for eight years in submarines. Because of a defect in the air conditioning system in the submarine he was poisoned, developed pneumonia and was seriously ill for some time. It was thought that it might be possible to transfer him to surface ships, so he was moved from Scotland to Gosport, but then it was decided that he would not be put into surface ships. Instead, he would be medically discharged from the Navy. He has residual asthma from his experiences in the Navy.
	My constituent applied for housing through the facilities available to service personnel. The description of the process involved makes the prospects seem quite cheerful. It explains how service personnel should apply to the joint service housing centre, and how accommodation will be found in one of the 180 areas in which that centre operates. My constituent applied, but was not successful. The Department of the Environment circular 14/93, "Housing for People Leaving the Armed Forces", with which I was associated many years ago when I was campaigning on behalf of former service personnel who were having difficulty obtaining housing, states:
	"authorities should not impose residential qualifications which put Service personnel at a disadvantage compared with other applicants; and personnel who are returning after several years' absence to a locality in which they lived before joining the Forces have a special claim to sympathetic consideration."
	My constituents put that point to the local authorities in Nottingham and Plymouth, where they came from originally, but neither Nottingham nor Plymouth wished to know at all.
	Gosport is the current local authority. It accepts a responsibility, but the responsibility that it accepts under the law is that it must provide accommodation when a family is homeless. That means that they must be, in effect, on the street. The Ministry of Defence has taken proceedings against my constituent. It has obtained a possession order for the house, and in doing so has applied for costs, so my constituent had to pay £220 to the Ministry of Defence for the privilege of being evicted from his own house.
	The situation as it stands is that, in due course, the bailiffs will turn up at that man's house, he will be evicted and will then be given bed and breakfast for himself. He has a wife and four children. He also has furniture, which presumably would need to go into storage, and two dogs, which might go into kennels at a cost of £8 a day. I put it to the Minister that it is totally unacceptable that an individual, through no fault of his own, should have been put in that situation. In parenthesis, I mention that one of his daughters was in Ministry of Defence accommodation when the boiler was noticed to be defective. That was reported, but, before the boiler could be repaired, it scalded the daughter, who requires skin grafts. That kind of situation is completely unacceptable.
	All three issues—the delay in inquests; defence medicine, which interrelates with the national health service; and housing—involve the Ministry of Defence overlapping in its responsibility with other Departments. The Ministry of Defence has had good service from individuals, but at the end of that period, for one reason or another, the individual cannot get the treatment that he or she so richly deserves. I put it to the Ministry of Defence that there should be a new understanding between it and other Departments whereby service personnel are not disadvantaged in that way, but given the kind of treatment that they merit on the basis of their service.

Michael Meacher: In a wide-ranging debate, the Front-Bench spokesmen concentrated, quite naturally and properly, on the issues that face us in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition to those continuing hostilities, two issues of overriding importance affect our stance on security. First, there is the question of our response to the growing evidence that the United States or its proxy, Israel, may unleash a military strike and possibly a nuclear one against Iran's nuclear facilities. Secondly, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend (Mr. Brown) mentioned, there is the decision on Trident. I shall comment briefly on both issues.
	I assume that if there was a US military attack on Iran there would not be any UK military involvement whatsoever, but I am not wholly convinced that our participation has been ruled out, so we must consider how a decision on the UK response would be made. As we learned from the Iraq war, it is astonishing that the decision to go to war—the gravest decision facing a nation—is still taken by one person alone in this country, namely, the Prime Minister of the day. There is no requirement to seek parliamentary approval and, even more astonishing, if the Prime Minister allows a parliamentary vote, and that vote is against war, he would still be within his rights to ignore it, as he has absolute power to commit the nation to war. That may be unlikely, but it is, none the less, an untenable position.
	Under the royal prerogative, which dates back centuries, the powers of the Crown exercised by the Prime Minister, without consultation in Cabinet or in Parliament, include the right to make war, to make peace and to sign and ratify treaties. The democratisation of prerogative rights is being actively sought by all political parties, and in opposition the Labour party stated that it would ensure
	"that all actions of government are subject to political and parliamentary control, including those actions now governed by the arbitrary use of the Royal Prerogative".
	It went on to emphasise the fact that the decision to go to war and the ratification of treaties were special areas of concern, and that is clearly the case.
	It is high time that those pledges were implemented. We urgently need a convention that requires the approval of Parliament to be sought before British armed forces are deployed and take part in military action. The Prime Minister should be required to lay before both Houses of Parliament a report setting out the proposed objectives of the action and its legality, including—and we remember the Iraq affair—the Attorney-General's full advice about the legality of any such action. That would still allow the Prime Minister, if he deemed it urgently necessary, to deploy troops before the approval of the House is given.
	In such circumstances, which are likely to be rare, the Prime Minister should still have to lay the report before Parliament within seven days after troop deployment had begun. Such demands are not out of step with constitutional practice elsewhere. In the US, for example, the war powers resolution of 1973—more than 30 years ago—requires that if the approval of Congress for waging war is not secured within 60 days, the President must withdraw US forces within a further 30 days. For all these reasons, will my right hon. Friend make it clear in his winding-up speech what plans the Government have to abolish, as we promised to do before 1997, the royal prerogative to commit the country to war, and in its place—I believe that this has wide support across the House—to regularise a democratic procedure by requiring a parliamentary vote of approval on a substantive motion?
	The second issue is Trident. The Prime Minister has made it clear that he has already taken the decision to replace the system. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend said so eloquently, at present the biggest danger that we face is the threat of terrorism on our mainland. For that, of course, nuclear weapons are useless. The only argument to justify Trident replacement, to which the Government always resort, and I think this also applies to the Opposition— when one is opposing both Front Benches, one feels confident of the rightness of one's cause—is that although nuclear weapons are irrelevant to our current security concerns, and even though we are now in an utterly different post-cold war environment, we may at some future point, inevitably unspecified, face either a rogue state, a re-emerging nuclear Russia or a nuclear-armed superpower like China.
	I want to examine that argument because, in the last analysis, it is the only serious bottom-line argument that is advanced. It is seriously flawed on at least three counts. First, as is or should be widely known, our nuclear deterrent is not an independent British nuclear deterrent—again, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend, with whom I had not collaborated before the debate, made the point excellently. We depend on the Americans for the warheads, the fuse and firing systems, the nuclear explosives, the warhead casings and the guidance systems. We cannot fire the missiles without US-supplied data and satellite navigation. As my right hon. Friend went on to say, we do not even own the missiles. They are leased to us by the Americans from a repository on the east coast of the United States under a system which, I believe, is known as rent-a-rocket. If we ever needed to stand alone in a situation where we did not have US approval, we would not be able to do so.

Robert Key: The Prime Minister says that he wants a national debate about what sort of defence forces we should have. I welcome that. I suspect that the conclusion will be that we have no choice. Against the current position of overstretch and underfunding—in respect of people and procurement—we need to take a long view of how we got to where we are and where our nation and our military want to be in the future.
	Our history and our heritage teach us—and economic necessity today demands—that we must sustain and pay for armed services trained and equipped for high-intensity warfare, with global reach and complemented by a strong diplomatic service. Both should be underpinned by increasingly sophisticated security services and intelligence networks.
	In the nave of Salisbury cathedral fly the regimental colours of proud Wiltshire units that have served down the centuries all over the world. One is a tattered flag that was carried up the Potomac river in 1814, when our troops sacked the White House in Washington. Today—this very day—sees the sad end of that great military heritage as the Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Light Infantry, like many other regiments, ceases to be, but we welcome the birth of a new regiment: the Rifles. I wish it a great future.
	The British have taken our language, ideas, trade and armies across the entire globe. Gone are the days of empire. The legacy is there—but we are not going to stop now. However, defence must start with the homeland. Some people thought that that was all over after the allied victory in the second world war. The slaughter in Northern Ireland rarely spilled over to us on the mainland. However, 9/11 changed all that. The Conservative party called for a dedicated homeland security Minister some years ago. The Government now look as though they might oblige by splitting the Home Office in two.
	British forces are needed to protect the United Kingdom's global interests in trade and shipping. More than 90 per cent of our imports come by sea. Those trade routes and vessels must be secure from foreign state intervention as well as from terrorism and piracy. That is why our forces must have global reach and power projection by land, sea and air. That must include amphibious capability, unmanned maritime systems, increasing use of unmanned combat air systems and space-based remote sensors. In other words, we must spend more on defence-based research programmes and do more collaborative work with our allies, including Australia.
	Keeping the peace is also a legitimate function of Her Majesty's forces. They are good at it—they are the best. I have seen that for myself in Bosnia and Kosovo. In Afghanistan, they are fighting a war as well as keeping the peace. In Iraq, our forces are in harm's way, suffering the consequences of little or no post-conflict planning by the Government and our major allies. However, British forces should not be forced to become a gendarmerie, which is a different function from peacekeeping. They are in danger of becoming one because of the disruption of training schedules for high-intensity conflict in the UK and elsewhere. Their skills are being blunted—and it will not do.
	I suspect that the British are genetically predisposed to belligerence. However, if we want a gendarmerie, let us create one. The British are brilliant at peacekeeping because of our national temperament. After 1,500 years of fighting each other in these islands we learned the hard way the virtues of tolerance and fairness, liberty and justice—all in the spirit of Magna Carta in 1215. We have been successfully invaded only twice—by the Romans and by the northern French, led by a Norwegian, but we were never subjugated.
	I pay tribute to all my constituents who work at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down and at the Health Protection Agency, which is also based there. They are a vital and increasingly important part of Britain's defence at home and around the world—they may deploy anywhere at a moment's notice to defend our people and our interests.
	I also salute those at the Defence Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Centre at Winterbourne Gunner in my constituency, who train our servicemen and women, and the staff of the police national chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear centre, which is also in my constituency, who have trained more than 7,000 police officers from every police force in the United Kingdom and other emergency services in the country.
	Of course, at Boscombe Down, the Qinetiq team supports the Royal Air Force. It produces remarkable avionics in addition to maintaining the Empire test pilot school, which trains all our fast jet pilots and those of our allies. However, I ask the Minister to press harder for a solution to the problem of the eight Chinook helicopters which were delivered to Boscombe Down in 1982. I was told in October that a deal was being done with Boeing to bring them back into service. I had hoped that it would be completed by the end of November, but we have not heard a word. Will the Minister tell us in his winding-up speech what is happening to those eight Chinook helicopters?
	We could not do without the Ministry of Defence police. They were originally founded by Samuel Pepys as royal dockyard police, and their officers now have full constabulary powers and extended jurisdiction in the UK to protect service personnel and their families as well as sensitive units and locations. They are currently deployed in Kosovo, Bosnia, Cyprus, Iraq, Sudan, Sierra Leone and the Pitcairn islands. The Ministry of Defence police, with their special skills, are currently the subject of two reviews into their future—the review of community policing inland and the armed guarding review. Both those reviews impact on my constituency. In winding up, will the Minister say when the reviews will be concluded and the results announced, because the effects on the Ministry of Defence police are serious?
	Defence in the world has changed, and we must move on too. The old certainties of the cold war have gone and led to wholesale reappraisals of the role of NATO and co-operation between European nations on defence. In March, the House will debate the proposed replacement of our Trident nuclear deterrent. The Defence Committee is embarking on its third report on that so that we are all better informed before we decide on the issue. I urge the right hon. Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher) and the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle) to wait for that report before being so definite about some of the technicalities that they described.
	At a time of nuclear proliferation, I would take some convincing that we should not legally—I am sure that it is legal—upgrade our systems and build new submarines. There has been no evidence to suggest that unilateral action by the UK would make the slightest difference to others who are not signatories to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and who are developing new nuclear weapons capabilities. We will continue to need a nuclear deterrent deployed at sea somewhere in the world. Those submarines must have global reach to defend British interests—trade and otherwise.
	Britain will have to spend more on defence as a proportion of our gross national product. We must be able to pay our forces more, equip them better and deploy them with the weapons and equipment to do the job. We must also think afresh about why we and other European nations need to define defence in new terms. Homeland security and territorial defence are vital. Increasingly, protection of energy infrastructure, from gas and oil pipelines to wind farms and nuclear power stations, will be seen as important. The politics of energy may dominate, but there are parts of Europe where the politics of water and food are also increasingly important. As the climate change crisis climbs the political agenda, carbon emissions will also threaten peace and stability. Poverty and economic migration already cause great friction between states: even Portugal and Spain have their problems, as do Italy, Greece and Turkey.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring(Dr. Fox) spoke about Turkey, and so will I. Turkey will become an even more important defence ally in future. The Turkish people, descendants of the Ottomans who ran a great European empire, are vital to the interests of peace and stability in their region, and vital to our interests too. I am astonished at the negative attitude to Turkey in Germany and France in particular. I am also gravely disappointed by the antics of some Members of the European Parliament who seek to block Turkey's logical and welcome membership of the European Union. Turkey is a member of NATO and vital to western interests. We should welcome Turkey and thank her for many years of solidarity, through dark and difficult times in Europe and the west, from her position on our continent.
	Given the absolute necessity of increasing financial, trade and manufacturing partnerships with China—a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty—and India, which is one of several nuclear powers outside the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, we should work hard not just on our diplomatic relations with those great nations, but on our military collaboration. Time after time, we have seen that close military relations and exchanges of service personnel yield huge dividends for Britain and improve our security. I also commend the Australian Government, under Prime Minister Howard, for deploying Australia's excellent military forces, not only in their natural sphere of influence—the Pacific—but for bearing their share of coalition operations in the middle east and elsewhere.
	The challenge for this Government and the next—Conservative—Government will be to convince the British people that our future prosperity depends on matching defence requirements with defence resources. As the fourth largest economy on the planet, we can well afford to reprioritise our national budget in favour of our defence in the world, and we should do so.

John Smith: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to take part in this important and—at least until now—interesting debate. We have heard a number of far-ranging speeches. I particularly welcomed the contribution by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. I pay tribute to him and the work that his team is doing in securing defence in the world for this country.
	I was also pleasantly surprised by the contribution of the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox). He made a good and balanced speech. Hon. Members will not be surprised to hear that I did not agree with all of it. I certainly did not agree with his comments on NATO and the Riga summit. I attended Riga and my impression was quite the opposite. The commitment given by our United States allies in particular and all our European allies to the future of NATO was strong and welcome. Although they did not extend the remit or future goals of NATO, they made one thing clear: our success or failure in Afghanistan will determine the future success of NATO and its role in this country's defence. I welcome that.
	Similarly, I did not agree with some of the hon. Gentleman's threat scenarios, but he was right when he said that we should keep all our options open when we consider the security of this country in an ever-changing world. It is not simply a case of the very new threats, which are real and great, but the need not to take our eye off the ball afterwards. I was concerned to read, as everyone else did, that the Chinese succeeded in taking out a disused weather satellite with what I understood to be an intercontinental ballistic missile. I cannot speak for anyone else, but it sent a shiver down my spine because it enhanced the strategic threat that China poses to the world when we have always considered it to pose a tactical regional threat. The traditional dangers are always out there.
	Clearly, the biggest threat we face—this is why we are fighting on two fronts, with two sustained conflicts, in Iraq and Afghanistan—is the direct strategic threat to this country from international terrorism. We have no option but to tackle that problem at source. Again, the hon. Gentleman was right to say that we should start looking afresh at our defence strategy. Indeed, the Prime Minister recently said that we should have a new debate on defence, and I agree.
	The hon. Gentleman was generous in pointing out that the Government's strategic defence review was a welcome document. It was foreign policy-led and identified some of the threats that we faced in the future and some of the things that we needed to do to address them. We then had the new chapter, following the 9/11 attacks, which added to the SDR, and the White Paper, which set out our capabilities for the future.
	It is my belief that there has been a paradigm shift in the nature of the threat away from what we historically looked at to the new invidious and horrendous threats from an enemy that places no limit on the weapons it is prepared to use; nor does it place any limit on the number or type of people, including non-combatants, that it is prepared to kill. It is also prepared to die in the process. That is an unprecedented and qualitatively new threat. We should look at our defence policy in relation to it. Perhaps we should consider a new covenant with the armed forces, arising from that threat, setting out what we expect them to do now that we did not expect them to do in 1997, when the scope of the SDR was first drawn up.
	Most members of our armed forces—who do a magnificent job every time and wherever they are deployed—did not join the forces to fight on a regular basis; they joined the forces to prepare to fight, as and when it was needed. The vast majority of service men and women did not actually fight between 1945 and the present day, but that is now changing. A large proportion of our service personnel are not only expected to fight but end up fighting, not just once but again and again in the most difficult circumstances, and not just in Iraq and Afghanistan but in west Africa, the Balkans and all over the world. That is a new arrangement, and we must recognise the commitment that our soldiers are now making.

John Smith: I agree. We changed the role of the Territorial Army—rightly—under the strategic defence review to make it more relevant to the changing threats that we expected to arise all over the world, but I do not think we expected the level of commitment and the operational tempo that are now required.
	This is not intended as a criticism of where we are, because we are where we are because we have to be there, but the present position may be a signal that we should start to think again about what the overall strategic defence requirement of the country is as a result of the shift that has taken place and the tempo at which we now find ourselves operating. I believe that that tempo has detracted from some of the other business in which we should be involved at present.
	Let me give an example. It is drawn from personal experience, but it worries me. We agreed, by and large, on the future platforms under the strategic defence review, and we agreed, by and large—although with some argument—on future force configuration. However, I am afraid that we will be blown off course and major procurement requirements will be sidetracked because of the pressure of existing operational commitments.
	How can we refocus on future needs and capability unless we consider again—10 years after we considered it the first time—a 10-year review? The Prime Minister has said that he wants a 10-year review, not just of defence but of other Government objectives. I think that some of the speeches today, particularly that of the hon. Member for Woodspring, indicate the need for a serious debate about what our defence needs are and what our future direction should be.
	I am proud of our handling of the defence budget over the past 10 years. We have maintained expenditure. I know that that is largely a result of our recent operational requirements, which have necessitated contingency expenditure; nevertheless, we have done well. But can we continue with a peacetime budget when some might say that we are in a wartime situation? I do not know what the answers are, but I think we may need to think about that in the fairly near future. It ought to be recognised that we have engaged in more conflicts recently—five major conflicts—than at any other time in the last 30 years.
	Let me end by referring to a matter of great importance which is part of the covenant that I think we should have with our service men and women: the provision of training, including future training, for military personnel. I congratulate the Ministry of Defence team on the announcement on 17 January that all technical skills training, phases 2 and 3, would be completely transformed and restructured for all three services. That will ensure that within five years—or a little longer—we will have one of the best military training regimes in the world. The defence training rationalisation programme—which commenced in 1999, following the strategic defence review which was part of the thinking on what our future requirements would be—concluded that the vast majority of training should take place at the old RAF St. Athan site in my constituency.
	St. Athan is a 600-acre site, and it was the largest military base in the United Kingdom. The intention is to provide a new purpose-built academy for the young men and women of our forces. There will be brand new facilities: brand new classrooms; brand new accommodation for both single and married people; brand new leisure centres; brand new sports tracks and gymnasiums; and there might be swimming pools, too. There will be the best such facilities anywhere in the world, and our servicemen and women deserve nothing less than that for the future.

Robert Walter: I just want the hon. Gentleman to be aware that the Ministry of Defence has spent£100 million in the last four years on creating precisely such facilities at the Defence College of Communications and Information Systems at Blandford, which now will be abandoned.

John Smith: There is bound to be resistance to the RAF St. Athan move; I heard the hon. Member for Gosport (Peter Viggers), whom I respect very much, express concern. However, the concern about that will be no less than the concern that was expressed about the creation of the tri-service military academy for our officer corps in Shrivenham, but I do not think that any Member doubts that that was one of the best moves that the Government ever made and that that academy is one of best additions to the training provision of our officers in the history of the MOD. It is so good that officers from around the world are queuing up to get into the facility and take advantage of the training—and I am sure that it will be even better now, as I recently discovered that warrant officers are being trained now at the academy and I am certain that they will put many middle-ranking and senior officers in their place.
	We will now provide such training for all other ranks in the Army, the Navy and the Air Force. There willbe training in mechanical engineering, aeronautical engineering, electrical engineering, computing, information technology, intelligence, logistics, photography and languages in one of the largest military academies in the world. That will add value to our covenant with the servicemen and women of this country, who do such a magnificent job, and I thank the MOD Front-Bench team for making this courageous decision. I am sure that that had nothing to do with the fact that St. Athan has been a centre of training excellence for decades, so much so that I understand that the Minister's father trained and developed his skills there in the late 1930s. That tradition will continue.
	This is a huge investment. It will mark a step change in the quality of training. There will be the modern approach to training that we desperately need to meet the changing security environment. However, this move will also present challenges for the local community, which is 110 per cent. behind it. I am aware that contract negotiations are currently taking place, but I hope that the Minister will, when it is appropriate to do so, meet me and representatives from the Vale of Glamorgan, who want to work tirelessly to make the move succeed and to make sure that we address some of the issues involved.

Mike Hancock: Some Members might be under the impression that the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (John Smith) was lukewarm on the idea of the training centre being sited in St. Athan; I have surely heard him speak with a lot more enthusiasm on that subject. I want to echo the sentiments of the hon. Member for Gosport (Peter Viggers), who spoke with real concern about the way in which service families are treated. The Minister has made it clear in the past that he is understanding of those problems, but sadly, the cases that the hon. Member for Gosport identified are not unique. Given that 58 per cent. of the Navy's married quarters are in the Greater Portsmouth area, he and I, along with other Members representing the region, know only too well the ongoing problems that many of our service families face.
	The same point emerged from the speech of the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), who said that the general morale of the forces is closely linked to the way in which service families are treated. That was a very important point to make, and I had a lot of sympathy with what he had to say—except on Russia. The right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend (Mr. Brown) was right to point out tothe hon. Gentleman that he had over-exaggerated the threat, and that he had failed to realise that some of the things going on in Russia have caused the Russians to do what they are currently doing. However, I share100 per cent. the hon. Gentleman's view on Turkey. This is an awful situation. The decision that the French took in passing their motion on the Armenian genocide problem could be repeated in the United States. I simply do not understand how that can be beneficial to the future of NATO or to the harmony that we want to create.
	I do not want to discuss the nuclear deterrent in detail today, but I want to put a marker down. A one-day debate on that issue in this House would be wholly unacceptable. Given the level of interest in it, such a debate ought to last at least two days, preferably three. This issue is vital to the country, and a six-and-a-half hour debate on it would be simply unacceptable. The House should be given the opportunity to have a much wider debate, so that more Back Benchers have a chance to contribute.
	I thank the Secretary of State for the time that he took and the generosity and good humour that he showed during his visit to the Portsmouth naval base. It was good to see him there. I had a few words with him before this debate started, and he was full of admiration for the base. He said how much he enjoyed the visit and seeing the new shipbuilding going on, and he noted the commitment of the work force, the Royal Navy and the city to maintaining the base. Other Members will doubtless make the same point about their constituency interests in this issue.
	I was delighted, as many Royal Navy personnel doubtless were, that the Secretary of State expressed the view that newspaper stories about six or seven ships being taken out of service this year were complete nonsense. He said that he had just come from a meeting with the commander-in-chief, who had not asked for ships to be taken out of service. The Secretary of State reaffirmed his position and gave a full commitment, saying that he was in no way contemplating that, and that no such suggestion had been put to him.
	No one can fail to have admiration for the men and women who serve in our armed forces. Those of us fortunate enough to have service establishments in our constituencies regularly meet service people who have returned from, or are about to leave for, other countries. That our nation has more than 20,000 personnel serving in some pretty dangerous parts of the world is a tribute to the training, dedication and commitment of those young people to doing that job. None of us should be anything but grateful for what they are doing on our behalf; we should appreciate what they are doing.
	The question that I posed earlier about the reliability or otherwise of the trained Iraqi police and army is one that one hears repeated when talking to service personnel who have been there. Their problem is one of confidence. They are concerned about what might happen if the braking mechanism of the UK forces—or the US forces in other parts of Iraq—goes. Our forces act as a brake on much of the violence that is perpetrated by some of those we have put back in uniform. In answer to an intervention, the Secretary of State mentioned what had happened in Basra with the serious crime group, which has now been broken up. However, nearly every member of that group took their weapons with them when they left their post. Where were those weapons going? Were they going straight into the hands of the insurgents? We should have considered total disarmament in that situation, as we should have done in Afghanistan when we firstinvaded it.
	Like other hon. Members who have spoken, I am highly cynical about and critical of the US's new plan for Iraq. For them, it is a do or die situation. They have not been able to control the area thus far, so what will they do now? It will need to be an all-out war in that part of Baghdad, but what will happen if they are not successful? When the Secretary of State gave evidence to the Joint Committee recently, he likened the situation to squeezing a balloon—a squeeze in one area means a bulge elsewhere. I had some sympathy for his answer that the squeeze would not necessarily be felt down in Basra.
	We got our intelligence hopelessly wrong about the state of Iraq. We disbanded the Ba'ath party organisation and the armed forces from day one, because intelligence supposedly told us that that was the right thing to do. No one in intelligence gave us any clue about the infrastructure in Iraq and how much of it had been shot away during the Saddam years. We got it wrong.
	In Afghanistan, we have the appalling situation of young service personnel dying there while young people are dying on the streets in the UK from drug addiction fed by the very poppy crops that our armed forces are not allowed to eradicate. We are part of a community that is paying farmers billions of euros every year not to grow anything. Would it not have been possible to eradicate the poppy crop and pay the farmers to do nothing? The Secretary of State suggested that that might double the poppy crop, because the farmers would take the money and grow the crops elsewhere, but we are supposed to be in control of that part of the country. Surely we owe it to those men and women whose lives are on the line in Afghanistan to allow them to do something that would save lives in the big cities of Europe, including the United Kingdom. It is a tragedy that we have not been able to do more on that issue. We should be able to do more.
	Is it seriously suggested that we can put a timetable on our involvement in Afghanistan? I am sure that hon. Members recognise that Afghanistan is a much more difficult problem than Iraq, but the very reason we should eradicate those poppies is, as I have said, to prevent the deaths that they cause and to stop the financing of the very fight that is being taken to us. Without the financing from the poppy crop, the Taliban would not have been able to do what they have done. We should not allow it to continue. I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to what has been an important and, I hope, helpful debate.

Dai Havard: I wish to address three areas, namely, some domestic issues that relate to my constituency; Iraq, which I have visited three times; and the strategic nuclear deterrent. My right hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig) made a very good speech, and I am sorry that I missed some of it. As a Minister, he had responsibility for veterans' affairs and I echo much of what he said on that issue. It is important not only that we value the veterans, but that we use the opportunities we now have, with the mechanisms that the Government have introduced, including veterans' day, to link them with younger people so that they may come to value and understand the contribution that others have made, as well as the context of our political democracy, which has been fought for and has to be maintained. That development is hugely welcome.
	On another matter, the Arctic Emblem medal is to be award posthumously to a late constituent of mine called Bill King. It is a disgrace that the contribution made by the merchant marine in the second world war has been left unvalued for so long, and I am very pleased that that is being put right at last.
	I turn now to Iraq. I have read the counter-insurgency plan put forward by General David Petraeus, and the doctrine from Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute that goes with it. They have been melded together in the current overall US plan. I am less enamoured with the Kagan doctrine than I am with the Petraeus doctrine, as I can see where some of the latter has come from. The British contribution to the discussion gave US forces a better understanding of how to approach counter-insurgency warfare.
	When I was last in Iraq, a member of the US forces told me that Britain trains soldiers and not just warriors. That is the difference: the British forces are able to achieve a roundness of response that sets them apart from the Americans. We know that, to make the plan work, all the different elements must be put together.
	However, I fear that the overall counter-insurgency plan will not work. It is strapped together with the Kagan doctrine, which is hugely flawed because it does not recommend that the US engage with the rest of the world, and especially Iran and Syria, to resolve the problems that face us in Iraq.
	I believe that we will have another debate on these matters in 12 months, and that we will have to deal with the problems caused by the US approach. We will have to take account of both the military context and the political circumstances. A broader international conference is needed to examine Iraq's internal political development, the reconstruction effort, and the military consequences of the war. Those problems will not go away. One Opposition Member spoke of the Americans' "do or die" attitude, but that will not be good enough. The present difficulties are likely to return, albeit in a different form.
	British troops in the south-east of Iraq are doing a lot of good work. Our plan is to draw back and let the Iraqis take control. When I met General Latiff, the current commander of the Iraqi army's 10th division. I was able to look him in the eye and make a judgment about him. He is clearly a capable and brave man, and the Iraqis want to take over responsibility for the area. Our forces set them a good example, although it should be said that the circumstances are not as difficult as they are elsewhere in the country.
	My fear is that the British plan will be disturbed. An analysis has been made of the effects that the US plan for Baghdad will have, and I hope that we are not shown too many red cards by the Americans. That would lead to the failure of our plan to let the Iraqis take control, and that would be wrong.
	Like it or not, Britain is part of the coalition and is bound to respond when attacked. I was very unhappy with our response to an attack on Falluja much earlier in the conflict. I do not want British troops to be put in a similar position again, either by default or by design.
	At the time, I spoke to soldiers of the Black Watch as they emerged from confronting that attack. They said, "Don't put us into situations like that. We can handle them, and we did that very well here, but we didn't have the intelligence that we needed. If you're going to commit us, then commit us, but we can't be expected to be rat catchers who get bounced around for a while. We can do the job, because that is what we do, but it isn't what we should be doing."
	We cannot solve the problem in Iraq by adopting the approach that was adopted in Falluja. We will not win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people like that, or set them an example of how to build a country. If the situation in Baghdad deteriorates, I hope that we do not allow similar problems to arise by default.
	I wish the counter-insurgency plan well, but it is only partial, as it takes no account of regional politics. Asa result, I fear that no solution will be achieved in12 months, and that we will have to have another debate on these matters then.
	We on the Defence Select Committee are discussing strategic nuclear defence. I am trying to let the facts and information inform my prejudice, even if I do not let them change it. At least I am going through that process, and the Government should go through it too. They should let the House inform them. My fear is that everything in this debate is conflated into one thing. I wrote a list for debate that includes matters relating to the construction work; the question of nuclear powered submarines as opposed to nuclear powered and nuclear armed submarines; diplomacy, our position in the world and whether we get a seat on the United Nations; the question of capability, its retention and whether we should keep the boats; legality; the question of time for the changes; and whether equipment can be refurbished rather than replaced. The arguments are hugely complicated in themselves, but together they make a picture. We need time to sort out all those different aspects and debate them. I do not believe that the debate in March will do that. That suggests to me a predetermined position. Okay, the Cabinet has a position and has told us what that is, but it does not have to be right. We should have the debate. We need time for the political calendar to turn. We do not need to make the decision in March, nor even in 2007. That might not be convenient for certain people who will leave, but they can always sit on the Back Benches and join the discussion. They do not have to be sat on the Front Bench, do they?
	There needs to be time for a debate in Parliament and in the country, and for the political calendar to turn and party conferences to take place. Otherwise, there will not have been an open, proper discussion about all the aspects that come together in a complicated final decision that commits vast sums. My judge in all this is not the Prime Minister; it is my godson who is three and a half. I look him in the eye and I think, "What am I going to say to you, boy, about my part in this decision that will commit you and your future?" That is my determinant in all this. We all need time. This is not CND pleading or pleading from another interest group. I do not represent that. I speak for the ability to have proper, informed discussion about the issue, not simply a reaffirmation of predetermined and prejudiced positions.

Robert Walter: The last two weeks have been a sad time for my constituency as a result of Government defence policy. In fact today is a sad day, because at midnight last night the Devonshire and Dorset Regiment, which goes back to 1685, ceased to exist. We wish all the men well in their new incarnation in the Rifles.
	Of more impact have been the Government announcements of 17 January that the Metrix Consortium was the preferred bidder for the £16 billion defence training contract—one of the UK's biggest private finance initiatives. It intends to relocate the Defence College for Communication and Information Systems, including the Royal School of Signals, from Blandford to St. Athan. That means that defence training will cease at Blandford around 2011, affecting some 60 per cent. of activity at Blandford camp. The news was a blow for Blandford and the wider community. The camp provides state of the art facilities for communication and information systems training, employs around 3,000 military staff, civilian staff and trainees, and supports a further 1,000 jobs in the local economy. The South West of England Regional Development Agency has estimated that the economic footprint of the camp is worth around £300 million a year to the local area. Thus any move is significant.
	I want to emphasise to the Minister that my main concern now is for the future of the camp after 2012. On 17 January I asked the Secretary of State to tell me whether the headquarters of the Royal Corps of Signals would remain at Blandford, and whether the Signal Officer in Chief would continue to be based at the camp. I would like confirmation in the wind-up that there is a firm commitment for Blandford to become the natural home of all Signals regiments when they are in the UK, with the technical support facilities that go with that role. As I mentioned earlier, the Ministry of Defence has spent £100 million on new facilities at Blandford over the past five years; it is definitely a centre of excellence and I want it to continue as the core of all Army communications and IT activity.
	The main focus of my remaining remarks will be on the relationship between the EU and NATO member states. I have been involved in that relationship as Chairman of the Defence Committee of the Western European Union—the inter-parliamentary European security and defence assembly. I want to destroy a few myths about European defence structures, which inevitably involve current EU military capability.
	Next month we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the treaty of Dunkirk—as Michael Caine would say, "Not a lot of people know that." On 4 March 1947, France and the United Kingdom signed a mutual assistance pact, which was set in the post-war climate of friendship and co-operation and openly targeted at a vanquished Germany to forestall new aggression on its part. The French Government wanted to guard against what they considered a possible threat from across the Rhine.
	The United States made known its preference for a regional pact that went beyond mere military matters, and in March 1948 five countries—the UK, France and the Benelux countries—signed the Brussels treaty, establishing what was then called the Western European Union, designed to guard against any armed aggression in Europe, not just aggression from Germany, against its members. The treaty organised co-operation among the five signatories in military, economic, social and cultural spheres, and a collective military high command of combined chiefs of staffs was created. However, the Brussels treaty was left devoid of its newly expanded authority when a succession of other treaties was signed establishing the Council of Europe, the European Coal and Steel Community and, of course, NATO itself. In April 1949, 12 Foreign Ministers gathered in Washington to sign the NATO treaty, which incorporated the Western European Union.
	In 1955, after the failure of the European Defence Community, West Germany officially joined NATO, along with Greece and Turkey. At about the same time, the Brussels treaty was modified to create the successor WEU structure, which played an important role not only in integrating West Germany in the Atlantic alliance, but also in the restoration of confidence among western European countries and the settlement of the Saar problem.
	The WEU did not have much of a role in the early years, but by 1984 Ministers had recognised the continuing necessity of strengthening western security, and that better utilisation of the WEU would contribute not only to the security of western Europe but also to an important common defence for all countries of the Atlantic alliance. The commitment to build a European Union in accordance with the Single European Act was signed, which brought a much stronger role in defence matters. There were operational roles for the WEU in the Gulf, the Balkans and on the Danube. That situation continued until 2001 when those roles were transferred to the EU, with the military staff, the satellite centre and the western European armaments group.
	I stress that there is nothing new about the EU's defence architecture, which under the provisionsof the Maastricht treaty remains very much intergovernmental—a subject for co-operation between member states. That is the key point. As debates in the Bundestag authorising the recent German-led force in the Congo demonstrate, no soldier from a European state will be deployed in a conflict situation without the express approval of his national Government or Parliament. Any talk of a supranational European army deployed by Brussels is extremely premature. EU deployments of military force will continue to be made on an intergovernmental basis among willing nations, as is the case for NATO and the United Nations.
	When considering NATO-EU relations, it is fundamental to remember that 21 of the 26 NATO members are also members of the EU, so relations between the two organisations are, to a large extent, relations between the same set of countries. Obviously, the United States is a major player, but if there is to be enhanced political dialogue, it must be among equal nations. In a speech on Monday, the Secretary-General of NATO asked:
	"Why are NATO-EU relations still so problematic?...My answer to these questions is clear and unambiguous. NATO-EU relations have not really arrived in the 21st century yet. They are still stuck in the '90s."
	That is the problem, but we have to move on. Reform is needed if we are to create and maintain Euro-Atlantic co-operation.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring(Dr. Fox) mentioned the genuinely disappointing Riga summit. We have to create a strong European pillar of NATO, and although the European Union is there to provide a framework, that must be done within the context of the Atlantic alliance and the wider global security system. Where appropriate, there can be a common approach within the EU. We must encourage all member states to invest in the necessary military capability, and we must make sure that their policies will strengthen the north Atlantic alliance by making a credible and effective European contribution to it.

Linda Gilroy: Just last week, the Select Committee on Defence published its fifth report of the Session, the result of the Committee's work in 2005 and 2006. That report reminded me why I have particularly enjoyed my parliamentary work this year, and of the breadth of our inquiry into past, ongoing and future policy. We considered a range of matters, ranging from the Met Office to the education of service children, as well as strategic issues such as the defence industrial strategy, and the strategic nuclear deterrent, which other hon. Members have mentioned. The latter two issues are of great importance to thousands of my constituents, as were our inquiries into troop deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq, where some 1,000 servicemen and women whose bases are in Plymouth, Devon and Cornwall are deployed.
	I pay tribute to those servicemen and women for the remarkable job that they do, and the service that they give on behalf of us all, and I pay tribute to their families, too. The fact that they do a remarkable job is reflected in the number of new year honours given to local men. Lieutenant-Colonel David Reynolds of the Parachute Regiment received the Queen's volunteer reserves medal. An award was also given to Lance Corporal Nick Coleman of D Company, Devon and Dorset Regiment. As we have heard, that regiment recently came to an end with a moving ceremony in Exeter cathedral. He is now a corporal, and received a medal for the heroic rescue of his colleagues in a "hearts and minds" operation. Soldiers were giving out footballs to children when things suddenly turned nasty, and insurgents attacked. More recently, Sergeant-Major Colin Hearne and Captain Dave Rigg, local men, were involved in an astonishing rescue of a fallen comrade, which involved their being strapped to the stabiliser wings of an Apache helicopter.
	In the time available, I want to discuss issues of concern to those working locally to support the provision of equipment for defence in the world, including the provision of the strategic nuclear deterrent. My right hon. Friend the Minister will know of the considerable uncertainties arising from industry consolidation, the defence industrial strategy, the naval base review, and the ownership of DML. As their MP, I am confident that the skilled men and women working at DML and the naval base will continue to play an important role in supporting the Royal Navy, but I know that we cannot afford to be complacent. Since December 2005 I have chaired the strategic group that brings together people in the company and in the naval base, the management and unions, senior people from Plymouth city council, the regional development agency, the Department of Trade and Industry and Jobcentre Plus to respond to the fast-changing circumstances.
	At the employee briefings last February, we heard of the potential loss of 900 to 1,200 jobs, as we go down from two nuclear submarine refitting streams to one. The naval base review is developing
	"a rigorous and objective fact base...to 'right size' our waterfront and logistic support infrastructure to that of the future Fleet."
	"The Case for Devonport" sets out how the facility there—the base of the strategic nuclear deterrent, with unique capabilities—can operate with unbeatable cost-effectiveness if the economies of scale that it is capable of offering are fully exploited. There is a track record of delivering multi-million pound annual savings—for example, £45 million from the submarine upkeep improvement programme—and we reckon that further savings of more than £120 million per annum could be released. We urge the Secretary of State and his ministerial team to look at fully realising value for money for the Ministry of Defence in the review.
	We are satisfied with the framework that has been developed, except in one respect. That has been taken up with the review team, but I will take the opportunity of drawing it to the attention of Ministers. The socio-economic impacts, like the employment impacts, need a common framework. Through a comprehensive and professional study, we need to ensure that things are receiving a like-for-like evaluation. That is essential if we are to be confident that important options are not going to be arbitrarily dismissed or marginalised.
	Finally on the naval base review, in Plymouth we realise the importance of obtaining value for money in relation to the overall MOD budget. We heard in many earlier speeches about how hard pressed that budget is. We need to get the procurement issues right because, as I have mentioned, we have many men and women who are serving on the front line and who need the right kit, in the right place. We are confident that what we have to offer at our naval base does just that, and we do not want to the opportunity that the review offers to be fudged. We do not want a decision that is not clear-cut, or that is open to challenge. We want fairness, not favour. I urge my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State and the Minister of State to take that clear-cut decision.
	In the last few minutes I shall turn to the important decision on the strategic nuclear deterrent. The Defence Committee is on its third inquiry, on the White Paper. Our aim is to have a series of inquiries producing factual reports that will inform the debate. We have looked at the strategic context and the timetable. In particular, we have looked at the skills base. Next Tuesday we will have the final session, with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. We have previously met with non-governmental organisations, academics and lawyers. The Committee will set out and clarify some of the questions that colleagues are asking, such as, "Do we have to do this now?" and "What points in that direction and what doesn't?" The single thing that does point in that direction is what I have just been talking about: maintaining the skills base in the different bases that contribute to the building and maintenance of the submarines. I remind colleagues that it takes up to 12 years to train a fabricator. That is aside from all the senior, complex work done by the design team. The teams cannot be reconstituted overnight.
	What will the costs be? One of the reasons why we make our own submarines is that—I am sorry that my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend (Mr. Brown) is not in his place to hear this—it is cheaper than buying them from America. There are other costs that have to be factored into the debate when thinking about what the real savings would be. People want to redeploy those savings on other expenditure—in this audience it would be on defence, but many others would argue for health and education. However, there would be decommissioning and economic regeneration costs. In Plymouth those economic regeneration costs would be astronomical. We are on the edge of what was the only objective 1 area in England. As another colleague has said, there would be costs attached to maintaining nuclear-powered, as opposed to nuclear-weapon-carrying, submarines. I hope that all that will come out clearly in the Defence Committee.
	Indeed, what is the impact on the UK role in the Security Council and our contribution to the non-proliferation treaty? I recommend that colleagues read annex A of the White Paper, as it sets out how much we have done to reduce our nuclear arsenal, which represents only 1 to 2 per cent. of the world's nuclear weapons. I would like what constitutes a minimum deterrent to be defined, as lawyers tell me that that has not yet been done. We can maintain our political and moral authority and keep our place on the Security Council—I have said that we do not need nuclear weapons to do so—and we shall return to those issues in March. It is an important decision, and I hope that the work that the Defence Committee has done will allow us to conduct the debate with more light than heat.

Julian Lewis: I am sure that the entire House will agree that it is absolutely typical of the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) that at the end of a long debate such as this one, he is still supplying something absolutely fresh, absolutely original and—dare one say it, however entertaining his contribution—absolutely serious.
	Before I begin my winding-up speech, I would like to say this. Twenty years ago, I had the occasion to visit the British Airborne cemetery at Oosterbeek near Arnhem. Among the serried rows of gravestones, I was interested to see a considerable number that were engraved not with the Christian cross, but with the Jewish star of David. I realised then that as far asthe services in the second world war were concerned, the people from other religions who fought and died for freedom and democracy did so, from this country's point of view, irrespective of their religion because they were British and because they were proud of the values that we were all standing up to defend. That has now begun to occur in the case of Muslim members of the armed forces. I pay tribute to the first Muslim soldier who was killed in action. He was a British hero, and if we are to fight and win what is fundamentally a battle of ideas, we will depend on people like him—and on his religious community to stand up for people like him and do what is right when extremists in that community seek to add to the dangers of our brave, patriotic, British Muslim servicemen and women.
	The hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (John Smith) made such an impressive speech, in which he said that there was a danger of the strategic defence review being blown off course, that I dug out a copy of that document from my little portfolio. It was produced in 1998 and broadly welcomed, not least by the Opposition. It set out a basic, strategic realignment, given that the likely threats would arise not on the continent of Europe but in locations much further afield.
	It followed that, if the armed forces were ever engaged in major war fighting, power would have to be projected at a distance. We are no longer an empire and can thus no longer rely on bases in many countries overseas. We cannot even rely on overflying rights, and it was therefore necessary to devise a power projection concept of a moveable base—a base in the sea from which the armed forces could be taken to the theatre of operations and that could project power from the sea to the air, from the sea to the land and from the air to the land. From that came the essential realisation that we needed to focus on the Royal Navy in general and carrier capacity in particular.
	That strategic concept has not fundamentally changed. However, the prescriptions set out in the document for what would be necessary to fulfil it have changed. Those changes appeared in two other documents that are cited much less frequently. One is the defence White Paper, which was produced at the end of 2003, and the other is the paper on future capabilities, which was produced as a supplement to the White Paper in July 2004.
	The problem is that the two documents do not match up. The earlier document admitted that the armed forces were engaged in a much heavier scale of operations than the strategic defence review anticipated. However, the rot set in in the 2004 document because that was when the Government started making the cuts in current capabilities to fund current campaigns. They not only cut current capabilities but made cuts in future capabilities, which the strategic defence review had described as necessary to implement the strategy that everyone accepted.
	Let me concentrate briefly on the Royal Navy and one aspect of it: the frigate and destroyer fleet. When the strategic defence review was published in 1998, it stated that we would cut the number of frigates and destroyers from 35 to 32. After two wars had broken out and were being fought, we suddenly found that, instead of 32 ships to discharge that function, there had been only 31 and a further six were to go, leaving only 25.
	The argument was put forward—it was dubbed by me, if nobody else, as the Hoon excuse in honour of the right hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Hoon), who was then Secretary of State for Defence—that we did not need so many platforms, as the new platforms were going to be more powerful than the old ones. We always knew, however, that we were going to have those new platforms. Even at the time of the SDR, we knew that they were going to be more powerful than the old ones. The difference was that whereas the Navy chiefs had accepted reluctantly a reduction from 35 to 32 in return for getting the carriers, they were now being expected to do the same job with 25. I am not as sanguine as the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock) that the fleet is not in danger of being cut further, because we all know that it is widely rumoured that a Defence Management Board meeting may mothball another six frigates and destroyers.

Julian Lewis: The point about the reliance on the American nuclear deterrent is this: we cannot rely on an American nuclear deterrent to act as a cover for our conventional forces when they are engaged against a country that might or might not have a nuclear weapon. The example of the Falklands was given and we were told that the strategic nuclear deterrent did not deter General Galtieri. Of course it did not—democracies do not use nuclear weapons to deter conventional aggressors. However, that was the wrong the point. What should have been said was that if General Galtieri had had a nuclear weapon, however crude, would we then have dared to retake the islands conventionally, knowing that he could have unleashed that on us and we would not have been able to deter him?
	The nuclear deterrent has two functions, not only the one that the right hon. Member for Oldham, West and Royton mentioned. It has the function of deterring strategic nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction attack against this country, and it has the function of ensuring that if our armed forces ever need to go into battle conventionally, they cannot be prevented from doing so by an opponent having even a crude mass destruction weapon.
	As for why we cannot solely rely on the American deterrent, it is quite simple: we are the principal ally of the United States and we go to war often alongside it, and there is a danger that an opponent might think that even though the Americans might well retaliate on our behalf to an attack with mass destruction weapons, the opponent might make the mistake of thinking that it would not and that it was easier to go after the smaller of the two allies. That mistake, with all its fatal consequences for all concerned, is done away with by our independent nuclear deterrent being under our independent control.
	Time is defeating me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, so I just say, in terms of what has been said about Iraq and Afghanistan, that in Iraq and Afghanistan there are doctrinal differences between our approach and that of our American allies. I believe that if we are the principal ally of the United States of America—the one country of a certain size, for there are other small countries, on which it knows it can rely—it needs to take our representations seriously, particularly in the field of counter-insurgency campaigning.
	I mean no insult to the record of the American armed forces when I say that Britain's achievements in counter-insurgency campaigns in the past feature lessons that can usefully be learned by our allies, and that, along with some of my colleagues, I am not entirely sure that they are always prepared to listen and take those lessons on board.

Adam Ingram: I apologise. I was going to refer to the new chapter to the review. We had to stand back and look at what had been said in the SDR. Some of the assumptions were based on the experiences of 9/11 and the wake-up call that the world received at the time. Out of that have come some fundamental rethinks about how we should best position ourselves. That process is not complete. Some of it is clearly driven by budget issues, but there is nothing new about that, and it will always be the case when defence matters are involved.
	The hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood) mentioned the reduction in the size of the infantry. His hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East mentioned the former Chief of the General Staff, General Jackson. I worked with him in developing the future structure of the infantry, and I recommend Members to remind themselves of the underlying principles.
	Owing to the way in which the arms plot works, up to 11 battalions were not available for use at any one time, mainly because of re-rolling. There was also the benefit flowing from the normalisation in Northern Ireland, which we had always expected to lead to change because of our heavy military commitment there. However, as a result of the change in the way in which the infantry is brigaded, all battalions will eventually be available for deployment. As General Jackson said at the time, we will have more battalions available with a total of 36 than we had with 40: that is the hard logic of the position.
	The hon. Member for Woodspring mentioned NATO, and criticised the role of some of our partners. Others mentioned the role played by national caveats. Those points are well made at various NATO engagements and meetings. At Riga, for example, there were developments and promises were made, but promises must be judged against what is delivered. There will be a further iteration of that when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State goes to Seville and we move on to tackle the next development in Afghanistan, and some of the points made by the hon. Member for Woodspring will be picked up at that time.
	The right hon. Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot) also mentioned national caveats. He mentioned the study into NATO that the Defence Committee is undertaking. We welcome that inquiry and we look forward to its outcome. As ever, it will be thoughtful and a lot of effort will be put into it. It will help the Government in their approach not only within the MOD, but in terms of our relationship with our international partners.
	The hon. Member for Woodspring mentioned medical facilities. He raised an issue that must be addressed as we continue our presence in Afghanistan. Time does not permit me to go through all the aspects of the medical facilities that are in place there, but let me comment on CT scanning, which he, as a doctor, knows is an important part of treating some injured patients. All UK military patients who require a CT scan are transferred to the Canadian role 3 hospital, a high-grade hospital at Kandahar, and we are seeking to provide a CT scanner at the new tier-2 build of the UK role hospital in Camp Bastion, which is in the process of being procured and commissioned—it is due in May.
	In closing, I want to remind the House of the significant contribution that our forces are making across the world. More than 5,000 people are deployed outside Iraq and Afghanistan, from Brunei to the Falkland islands as well as in sub-Saharan Africa, Cyprus, Gibraltar and the Balkans. My right hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig) made that point. He also made another important point about the recognition that we give to our veterans and the role of the Veterans Agency. No matter how much energy he put into that when a Minister, or how much others have put in subsequently, it is an area that has to be developed as part of our MOD outputs. I am sure that there will be cross-party support for that.
	My right hon. Friend also asked about the pressure on key medical specialities. We recognise that there are shortages, and that creates problems. There are key shortfalls in the specialities of accident and emergency, orthopaedics, anaesthetics and general practice. We are taking steps to address them through a range of pay and non-remunerative initiatives, including working to ensure that pay remains comparable with that of the NHS—that must be part of the inducement—establishing alternative means of meeting operational commitments, and managing consultant deployments on a tri-service basis. We are working within the capacity that we have, and we are also trying to gain additional capacity to meet the needs in that crucial area. However, I want to emphasise that the defence medical services have met all the operational requirements placed on them. Medical support for deployed operations is vital and there is no question of British forces deploying on military operations without the appropriate medical support.
	I welcome the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy). As ever, it was thoughtful and she raised two very important issues. I want to deal with one of them, which relates to her constituency concerns and the naval base review. We have been investing in the Royal Navy—despite what was said by the hon. Member for New Forest, East—in order to provide modern and effective ships, and it is only right that we review naval bases to make sure that we have the right infrastructure—no more and no less—to support the Royal Navy of the future and to ensure that we get the most out of the money that we have for defence. The reason for that is quite simple: to ensure that the resources are rightly focused on the front line. Surplus capacity and activity drains resources from the front line. Getting that balance right has always been a driver in defence, and is perhaps even more so now. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton understands that point and would not argue against it.
	These are difficult and weighty matters and it is important to have as much information as possible to support out decision making. The team undertaking the naval base review is ensuring that local aspects—the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton made—as well as defence needs are taken into account. The review will help to determine the infrastructure that we must retain, and what, if anything, we can do without. There will be a lot of discussion and debate about the outcome, but that will not be because of a lack on input from people such as my hon. Friend, who has put together a very cohesive case on her constituency's behalf.
	The hon. Member for Gosport (Peter Viggers) raised a number of issues and I shall deal with just one—the coroner's court. There has been an unacceptable backlog of inquests at the Oxfordshire coroner's court, but that has begun to be addressed through the work of the Ministry of Defence and the Department for Constitutional Affairs, which has direct responsibility for such matters. Three additional assistant deputy coroners have been appointed to assist the Oxfordshire coroner in dealing with the backlog of operations-related inquests, primarily on deaths in Iraq. Some 15 inquests into the deaths of service personnel killed on Operation Telic have been scheduled for hearing between 1 January and the end of May this year. That means that most inquests relating to deaths of service personnel before 2006 that are in the jurisdiction of the Oxfordshire coroner will have been held. The DCA is taking steps to avoid a future backlog of inquests. The criticisms have been well made in the past and have been well made again today. We all recognise the vital importance of getting matters right.
	The hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey) had a cross-Chamber discussion with Members about his analysis of his party's policy on withdrawal from Iraq. I shall read what he said with interest—it is probably better to read it than to try to recollect it now—and compare it with the views expressed by the leader of his party, the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell). We will doubtless return to the issue. I do not want to labour the point, and we should not make too much of a party political point out of what he said. However and as I pointed out, the hon. Gentleman seemed to be coming my way, and toward this Government's view about the conditions-based circumstances that will lead us to reach a conclusion on the various developments that must take place in Iraq in the coming months.

Damian Green: I am grateful for the chance to speak about the subject that most enrages not only my constituents but people all over east and north Kent—including, I suspect, the constituents not only of the Minister but of the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Jonathan Shaw) who is the duty Whip. I imagine that their constituents regularly get as angry as my constituents do about being caught up in the backwash of Operation Stack.
	Operation Stack is the use of the M20 as a lorry park whenever there are problems getting lorries across the channel. It must be the worst piece of emergency transport planning anywhere in Britain. We all accept that motorways can be closed if there is a serious accident or if weather conditions dictate. But I am not aware of any other motorway that is regularly closed as a matter of deliberate policy to address a problem that has nothing to do with driving conditions.
	The closures are becoming increasingly common. In the 20 years since Operation Stack was first introduced, phase 1, which involves closing the motorway at the end, between junctions 11 and 12, has been implemented 74 times. Phase 2—closure between junctions 8 and 9 around my constituency in Ashford—has happened 17 times. But last year it was invoked six times, and it has happened three times so far this year already. I can speak with some feeling about recent incidents because on Thursdays I drive home down the M20 and leave at junction 8, as I will tonight. It takes about an hour and a quarter—or not, if there is a queue of lorries tailing back from junction 8 waiting to be stacked. Closing the motorway should be absolutely the last resort. In this bizarre policy, it is the first resort.
	The combination of the notorious French attitude to industrial relations, which involves closing the port of Calais at the first available excuse, and the weather in winter, means that unless something is done, this policy will be a never-ending misery. I am not using exaggerated language. I could fill my entire time in this debate—and probably the Minister's—reading out letters and emails from my own constituents explaining how the closure of the M20 has affected them. Inevitably, it clogs up every main road in east Kent as people try to avoid it. People take hours to get to work. Appointments are missed. Contracts are lost. Business grinds to a halt. If the Minister thinks that I am exaggerating, I refer him to the KentOnline website, where he can see dozens of examples of what happens. I have studied the website to learn the current feelings about Operation Stack, and even I was surprised by the number and vehemence of the complaints about it. That website is one of many with competing petitions to the effect that it must stop immediately.
	Operation Stack is not just a personal inconvenience for those involved. It has a damaging effect on the whole economy of the county. A survey for the Federation of Small Businesses in Kent showed that levels of dissatisfaction with the road network are significantly higher in Kent even than in the rest of the country. The federation has calculated that the cost to its members in Kent alone is £10 million a year, and the overall effect on Kent businesses will of course be much larger.
	In that context, I remind the Minister of the need for incoming investment to provide jobs for the people who will move to the 31,000 new houses planned for my constituency in the next 25 years, or to the many thousands of other houses that it is hoped will be built in Kent. The plans just for Ashford assume, grandly, that 28,000 new jobs will be created. In an increasingly competitive world, we need to entice businesses to come to Kent. Closing the motorway for unspecified periods at unexpected but regular intervals, and doing so more and more frequently, is exactly the wrong way to encourage new investment in the county.
	On top of the economic damage being done, there is an effect on the Kent police. Like many forces, they are extremely stretched. The chief constable of Kent is Mike Fuller, who has called the existing method of dealing with the backlog of trucks waiting to cross the channel a "huge drain" on police resources. He said:
	"It is not something we want to do, nor something we do lightly."
	In the past three years, Operation Stack has cost the Kent police more than £232,000 in overtime and extra equipment costs alone. The chief constable has said:
	"We are desperate for the highways authorities to come up with a solution."
	That desperation is echoed by many other people.
	The problem is getting worse every year, as freight traffic increases. Some 2.3 million trucks use the ferries at Dover every year, and roughly another 1.2 million use the channel tunnel as a freight route. In 2006, the amount of freight going through Dover rose by about 18 per cent., and that is expected to double over the next 20 years. If the problem is bad now, we can expect it to get much worse in the years to come—unless we do something about it now.
	Before I move on to the solutions being proposed, I want to raise one other matter—the sheer time that it has taken for anyone to get a grip on the problem. The letters in my file go back as far as 1999, and they make depressing reading for students of public policy and governance in this country. Over the years, the police have said that they are doing what they are told to do, the county council that it is doing what the Government demands, and the district councils that they have neither the power nor the money to solve the problem. The Department for Transport and the Highways Agency have said that Operation Stack is indeed is a problem, and that they will deal with it some day. The traffic stops, but the buck keeps moving.
	That is why I am delighted that Kent county council has taken the initiative of looking for some sites, one of which would be suitable for parking some 2,000 lorries. That would make a significant difference to the need for Operation Stack. The council is working closely with the relevant borough councils of Ashford, Dover, Shepway and Maidstone, and with the channel corridor partnership.
	As the Minister will be aware, those borough councils are vitally interested in the matter, as there is a longer-term need to provide permanent lorry parking in that part of the world. Many areas, including parts of Ashford, are regularly blighted by unofficial and sometimes illegal parking. One of the beneficial side effects of having a lorry park that could cope with Operation Stack would be a partial alleviation of that longer-term problem.
	However, that is not the main focus of my plea to the Minister this evening. I know that he is aware of the problems associated with the motorway network and the freight routes through Kent. I was glad to see his honesty and straightforwardness when he admitted to the Select Committee on Transport that the approach to the port of Dover was one of the elements of this country's transport system that we have not got right. Everyone agrees about that, but it is longer-term problem. I am talking about an immediate problem that needs an immediate solution.
	I hope that the Minister is encouraged by the work that has been done so far by the councils, and especially by the helpful work on technological advances. I understand that it is now not necessary to put down large amounts of concrete over green fields to create a temporary truck stop. We can use underground mesh to strengthen the turf, which allows the grass to continue to grow but provides a strong enough surface for a lorry park. We need to take environmental considerations into account. This new method, which would not have been available some years ago, offers a practical way forward which will minimise some of the inevitable environmental damage, and therefore opposition, that arises from setting up a new lorry park.
	What am I asking for this evening? I want the Minister to commit his Department to doing everything in its power to push through an alternative to Operation Stack as soon as possible. The current feasibility study into the sites identified by Kent county council will take only a few weeks. I hope and expect that the councils will also receive some positive help from the South East England Development Agency, which is rightly taking an interest in all this. Its duty is to foster economic development throughout the region, and without a solution to Operation Stack, steady prosperity and economic development in Kent will be much more difficult to achieve.
	In the end, all the work of SEEDA, the county council and the district councils will not create a solution unless central Government become actively involved. Clearly, on a practical level any possible solution will require access roads and will need to complement the existing road network. Equally clearly, the funding of any new arrangement will need at the very least Department for Transport blessing, even if it comes, as I suspect it can, from existing programmes. I hope that the Minister can commit himself to more than warm words when he responds. I hope that he will commit himself and his Department to working with Kent county council and the other public bodies and, most of all, commit his Department to a leading role. I fear that without an active and leading role, the solution will again fall into the category of something that is too difficult and "not my problem", which is where this has lain for far too long.
	The Minister will be aware that 2007 has so far been an appallingly frustrating year for those of us who regularly use the M20. Let us at least go through this year in the hope and expectation that it will be the last year that we will have to endure Operation Stack. If we can achieve that, and if he can play a positive role in achieving it, everyone involved will give thanks, from the road haulage industry to my constituents, his constituents and the thousands of others who use the roads in east Kent. We cannot carry on like this, and I hope that the Minister can assure us that we will not have to.

Stephen Ladyman: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) for raising this important issue and I congratulate him on securing the debate. We are having a Kent night here since the Government Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Jonathan Shaw) is a Kent Member, as am I.
	I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman realises this, but as well as being the roads Minister, I am the road safety Minister and I have noted that he can get to junction 8 on the M20 in an hour and a quarter at this time on a Thursday night. I think that I shall be asking our chief constable to keep an eye open for him.
	As a Kent Member, as well as roads Minister, I share the hon. Gentleman's concern about Operation Stack, which has a major impact on east Kent. I am as anxious as he is to find a solution for constituency and ministerial reasons. I certainly hope that I can offer him more than warm words tonight.
	Since the beginning of December, Operation Stack has been implemented five times, mainly because of the severe weather. That has led to a high level of non-HGV diversionary traffic on local roads and disrupted journeys for many people. Indeed, I have been caught up in it myself, so I understand the frustration first-hand.
	The origins of Operation Stack go back to the seamen's strike of 1988 when the M20 was closed between junctions 9 and 13 for about 14 weeks—the M20 between junctions 8 and 9 was not open at the time. However, that use of the M20 was not formalised and before 1997 the normal emergency traffic management plan involved allowing lorries and cars to park anywhere, especially on the A20, although many used local roads—I suspect that the hon. Member for Ashford would not want us to return to that arrangement. Because we recognised the serious disruption that was being caused for local residents and businesses, a system was developed to provide emergency parking on the M20 for heavy goods vehicles; in essence, that was the Operation Stack that operates nowadays.
	Operation Stack is for emergencies, and the decision to implement is taken by Kent police who invoke their emergency powers. Its three phases can together provide space for a total of 7,400 trucks that would otherwise be parked on unsuitable roads. I am told that the police have never had to use phase 3, although I understand that it came close to being implemented during the recent severe weather.
	Over the years improvements have been made to the use of Operation Stack. A ticketing regime has been introduced by transport operators, whereby lorries are sequentially ticketed and queued for boarding on the closed motorway, which helps to prevent lorries that try to avoid stacking on the M20 from clogging up less suitable roads. At Easter 2005, when Stack had to be implemented an exceptional number of times, owing to berthing problems at Calais, the Highways Agency and the police trialled new contraflow arrangements between junctions 8 and 9 on the northbound carriageway, allowing lorries to be stacked on the southbound carriageway while also allowing other southbound traffic to use part of the northbound carriageway to go south.
	Although it took a long time to set up the cones, which proved resource-intensive for the police and the Highways Agency contractors, the use of a contraflow system was considered a success in terms of better traffic management. However, the system normally takes too long to set up with conventional coning to be useful, given the short notice that we usually have of the need for Operation Stack, and for safety reasons the police do not recommend a system based on cones. As a result, studies were carried out on the possibility of using an American system, the quickchange moveable barrier—QMB—to implement speedier contraflow arrangements. The system is being used at the A2-M2 roadworks in Kent, where our joint constituents can see it working effectively in practice.
	Contrary to what the hon. Gentleman may have implied, I emphasise that we have not been complacent. We have not been sitting around doing nothing; we have constantly looked for ways to improve Operation Stack—how traffic is managed and how we can ensure compliance of trucks in parking on the M20, where they can be managed, rather than on other roads. In addition, the Highways Agency is working in partnership with the local authorities to review the effects of Operation Stack and is considering what improvements might be possible, both in the short and medium term, to reduce the delay both for cross-channel and local travellers.
	In the short term, before the end of March this financial year, two improvements to setting up traffic management for Operation Stack will be installed. A new permanent sign will be mounted on the verge approaching the commencement of the traffic management arrangements for Operation Stack. The sign will display "Workforce in Road - Slow Down", and a warning will be given to drivers by the use of amber flashing beacons. That will help to protect the work force and the police while they install lane closures when Stack is being implemented. The time taken to set up the traffic management arrangements will also be significantly reduced by using black guidelines—set in the road surface—to allow traffic management to be implemented quickly on the correct alignment.
	In the medium term, the Highways Agency is making progress in the use of the quickchange moveable barrier, which I mentioned earlier, and now has operational experience of this innovative technique. It was used effectively on a scheme on the A21 last autumn and it has now been adopted at a major project in Kent on the A2-A282. The system is proving beneficial in reducing the length of the contract period, with resulting benefits to all road users. Given the novelty of the system in this country, the Highways Agency has done well to get it trialled so quickly.
	Design work has been commissioned for central reserve works to accommodate the QMB and for a storage facility for the QMB machine. That is part of phase 1 of Operation Stack. I expect to see detailed costings and information on the economics of proceeding with the scheme in the next month or so. We are considering a QMB to speed up contraflow arrangements, but in addition, the Highways Agency is examining ways of introducing a package of low-cost traffic management works on the A20 near Dover to ease flow from the M20 to the docks, and it is working with Dover district council and Kent county council on that. Such improvements could include variable message signs, static signs, white lining, local realignment of roundabouts and phased signalling.
	The Highways Agency, in partnership with Kent county council and Medway council, is conducting a county-wide variable message sign study. Lack of accurate information is a cause of customer dissatisfaction, according to the Highways Agency's road user satisfaction survey. The study will assess motorists' requirements for improved information on both the strategic and the local road network. Discussions are taking place between the Highways Agency and Kent county council to secure operational agreements. That will allow the more effective use of tactical diversions between the M2 and the M20 strategic routes, using the A229 and the A249. Those agreed diversions could be used for Operation Stack, or for any other major incident.
	The Highways Agency is working with partners to find short and medium-term solutions to Operation Stack, but as the hon. Gentleman says, we need to find a long-term solution. On the longer term, three or four proposals are being discussed with developers, the district councils and Kent county council. The Government office for the south-east is a supporting partner in the discussions on identifying and bringing forward proposals. In November 2005, it published a paper on the issue, and I understand that it was well received. It was part of the push to bring together all interested parties to determine how Operation Stack could be replaced.
	During 2006, the channel corridor partnership, which includes officials from the Government office for the south-east, held the "lorries in Kent" summit. I understand that the summit led to a delegation of Kent partners lobbying the European Commission for recognition of Operation Stack as a trans-European issue. The Department recently commissioned a study to assess whether there is likely to be a business case for the private sector providing a large, multi-use lorry park that could potentially be used for Operation Stack. We hope to have the results by the summer. However, the success of any solution would depend on the role played by the local planning authority and other stakeholders. Potential developers are coming up with proposals that are being investigated and explored. At the moment, four sites are being discussed, and they should be assessed within the context of the study.
	From comments in the Kent media, and having checked with Kent officers, I understand that Kent county council is urgently looking for off-road sites. We will receive any ideas that it produces with interest, and will look at them closely. I promise the hon. Gentleman that I will take its ideas seriously and that we will actively investigate them, but I hope that he understands that the site has to be acquired and made accessible to heavy trucks in difficult weather conditions. There is also the matter of building slip roads and other roads leading to the site. Those are not cheap options, and we have to find a cost-effective solution.
	I have asked my officials to consider how we might incentivise lorries to find official parking outside Kent as part of a distributed Operation Stack. Perhaps we could encourage lorries to go to lorry parks elsewhere in the country before they even reach Kent, and issue them with tickets in those remote sites, so that when Operation Stack is eventually lifted, they can make the journey to Kent and get on the boat at the time specified on the ticket.